Grim Tales of the Universe
by Brandon Storm
Summary: A Journey of two young siblings through the greater universe of the Grim Tales Universe
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**: So new story, and since I clearly haven't learned my lesson from the last time another Grim Tales. So instead, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 1: A Guide to the Map of Infinite Realms

The Castle Grimskull was one of the only monuments in the waste land of the Grim Family territory, a castle with bricks composed of bone and mortar made of blood. The castle was built directly on top of a massive skull shaped mother ship that at some point in the past was hijacked, used to reduce the area to wasteland and rubble, before promptly crashing it into a particularly treacherous mountainside. Still the area was milked for all it was worth. Multiple BFG 10000 anti-air cannons was positioned around the area designed to instantly wipe out any enemy who attempts to approach the area from the air, hundreds of Slamworms from the planet Terraexcava were released into the desert, mowing down armies from land by the thousands. As they were doing now. Alien Zombies who had their brains towering a full foot out of their skulls were swarming the mountains by the millions overwhelming ground defenses through sheer numbers. Higher up on the mountain side a skeleton dressed as a mariachi band member and swinging around a ax shaped guitar as a weapon was fighting what closely resembled a skeleton coated in a layer of black demonic flesh and wearing a black cloak who was alternating between a single double ended scythe or splitting it down the middle into two smaller scythes with bony hands on the oft end.

"Any last words? ...Any words at all?" The Mariachi skeleton asked in a mocking tone of voice.

**"#### ###!" **The Demon Skeleton replied in a language that was impossible to either Understand nor repeat.

"Some how I expected that." The musical skeleton made a few adjustments on his ax and unleashed a fist shaped mass of green ecto energy against his opponent, who in turn screeched with a Ghostly Wail and the two attacks met in a explosive end.

Elsewhere on the mountain a olive skinned approximately eight year old girl in a school uniform of all things was fighting with a even stranger weapon, a lunch box one with a predisposition to spewing monsters from it. And yet faster then the box could spit it's nightmares out they were being cut down, a Frankenstein like girl of approximately ten years of age was using a high frequency katana blade in combination with bow and arrows to make mince meat of the creatures of the box be they Manotaur, Hydra or Harpy.

"Like Mother! Like Daughter!" The Olive skinned girl snapped as she aimed her lunch box like a bazooka and fired more creatures from it at her opponent.

"Verily!" First the zombie girl fired a single arrow into the sky, then she followed up with a slash from her blade that cut through several of the creatures before retreating again, the one arrow in the sky split into a thousand splinters, which then grew into their true form and rained down on the monsters below in a storm of arrows.

* * *

"It sounds like it's getting pretty fun out there." Manny was the youngest boy in the family at eight years old, and younger than his sister by a few seconds. He floated in the air several feet off of the ground his white hair and blue skin complimented by a set of green eyes, in the mean time he was made to wear a green one piece suit with a navy blue cape.

"Be serious Manny! Our Siblings are out there fighting that hell as we speak!" Daniela on the other hand wore a elegant black dress, as elegant as something a eight year old could wear that is. Unlike her brother she was in her human form which is to say pale colored skin and black hair with red eyes.

"I know they're so lucky!" Manny gushed prompting a face palm from her sister.

"Both of you fall in line!" The twins Mother was one Mandy Grim, at first glance the most likely word that came to mind was stripper, what clothing she did wear only covered the important areas, and what white flesh that was exposed was contrasted heavily by the red trimmed charcoal black cloth. However more often than not what attracted people's attention the most was what was above the black cloth, predatory blood red eyes framed by golden blonde hair, and the spine numbing feeling of terror which states that you would be cut down if you do not do as you are told. As such the two hastened their pace, even as the castle started to shake. Mandy led the two to her vault, where her pet guard dog and it's many heads did battle with a hydra and it's many heads.

"Daniela make us intangible." Mandy held her hands out to her children and the two twins took them, Daniela worked her power and suddenly the three of them were effectively untouchable. Thus they went through the battle field and over to the vault where Mandy entered a code to open the door the bare minimal amount and led the three of them inside before securing the door shut.

"Ah! Are we staying in here while the fighting is going on!?" Manny asked sounding sorely disappointed. "I'm arming myself." Mandy stated while she strapped on several choice fire arms and various other weapons. "You two on the other hand are escaping." Mandy stated as she pulled out one of the display items. It was a scroll, ordinary by all appearances, yet held the qualities of being both ancient and new and radiating power that could not be quantified in simple terms. "This is called the infi-map, take it and it will lead you to where you need to be." Mandy stated handing the twins the map.

"I don't understand." Daniela stated looking down at the map.

"You will soon enough. Both your brother and your sister have taken this map and gone on their own journey's, the time has come where the two of you must go on your own." Mandy stated as she cocked her weapons and readied for battle. "Go. Get stronger, then come back and help us fend off this threat." Saying that Mandy opened and closed the vault door, the sound of gunshots waved back at the twins from the other side of the door.

Either twin took a side of the scroll and pulled, the map revealed itself and in short order beamed the both of them up through the castle and out of the Vault. The two of them were punted off into the Ghost Zone, sent careening out of control before crashing down where they knew not.

* * *

"They're children?" Manny was the first to gain something resembling consciousness, still his eyes were quite slow to open, and what few visual references he could actually see had his arms and legs strapped down, and he could see that Daniela was in the same boat before he lost consciousness again.

"They fell from the sky, left a sizable welt in the ground when they landed, survived, as far as I'm concerned their age is irrelevant." Daniela opened her eyes briefly, she learned that she was in a hospital room before she closed them again, working to maintain her consciousness as she listened in on the conversation going on about her and her brother for as long as possible before she lost consciousness again.

"Ugh." Manny groaned awake, it was night time now, the lack of light coming in through the window was evidence enough of that. "Psst. Dani... Dani!"

"I can hear you Manny." Dani was the first one to get free, the ability to pass through solid objects made restraining them honestly rather pointless. In addition the instant repair ability of a immaterial body also means that a hospital was also rather pointless.

"I was waiting for you to wake up!" Annoyed Manny used a ecto beam to cut the straps off of himself as he floated up to meet his sister.

"We cannot just blast ourselves out of here Manny." Daniela stated looking distastefully at the mess her brother made.

"Why not?" Manny asked cocking his eyes suspiciously while he crossed his arms.

"Because we have to assume we're here for a reason!" Dani snapped recalling the lecture her mother gave them about the infi-map. "That magical map is designed to take us to wherever..." Then Daniela noticed something, that they no longer had the extremely powerful and important magical artifact on their person. "...We are now." There were only two possibilities, the map had been picked up by the same people who picked them up, the second is that the map was left at the site of the crash that they came down on, which opened up the additional possibility that someone or something came by and took it.

"So what do we do now?" Manny asked cocking a brow.

"In my opinion we should first determine if these people will be good allies or not." Daniela stated crossing her arms.

"And we do this... how?" Manny asked unable to comprehend how they were going to do this.

"Seeing as how you didn't bother to simply phase through those restraints I'm going to let that slide." Dani stated face palming in annoyance.

* * *

"Nurse what happened to the two who were in here last night?" A brown haired and heavily armored man asked crossing his arms and looking at the nurse suspiciously.

"I'm as confused as you are! One moment I'm coming in to change their fluids and the next they're just gone!" The Nurse snapped clearly exasperated.

"Report to me immediately if you see them." Saying that The Man at Arms left while the nurse returned to her station, her eyes turning from red to blue as Daniela left her body.

Thus Daniela's intelligence gathering efforts had begun, Jumping from body to body as she acquired whatever clearance she needed to access a area or whatever face she wanted to talk to someone. Obviously their priority was locating the Infi-map. Someone who was apart of the search party was enough of a magic caster that they were able to recognize the powerful magical artifact and took it with them now they needed to find this person and get their map back. Manny on the other hand went for combat training, possessing the body of the local prince he was easily able to secure the best trainers in the kingdom.

"Adam, I can't help but notice that you're taking your training a little more..." Serious wasn't the right word, rather the normally pacifistic prince had suddenly thrown himself into combat training with a nightmarish smile on his face. Even more disturbing he would just as frequently switch back to his old pacifistic self with a disturbed look on his face.

"Enthusiastically?" Manny in the blonde prince's body stated letting out a smile. "It's all in good fun isn't it?"

The prince's combat trainer would be even more disturbed to realize that the one that he was talking to was not a twelve year old who was only occasionally engaging in violence and was instead a eight year old who ate lived and breathed it.

"Orko have you examined that magic item we found earlier?" The Man at Arms asked cocking a suspicious brow at the resident mage/court jester.

"I'm at a complete lost for words." The person in question was short, black, covered in red robes and floated at eye level through magical means. "I've never seen magic like this on this world or my own yet I sense a connection to both worlds and many others."

"...Explain." Man at Arms ordered requiring a more detailed explanation.

"Simply put, it's a map, a map connecting the infinite realms together." Saying that Orko tried to open it but failed. "Some kind of locking mechanism keeps it from being opened." Is what Orko said but his examination revealed no physical mechanism. "If I was a guessing man, I would say that it decides when it can be opened, and if that's the case it might also decide the destination." Saying that Orko locked the scroll in a chest, which he then coated in a layer of barrier type magics.

"Based on what you said is that security really necessary?" Man At Arms asked cocking a suspicious brow.

"You say that, but just because this thing is sentient does not mean that it's necessarily benevolent." Orko replied as finished securing the locks. "For instance, there's the two that dropped into place with this thing. Even though they look to be children they still fell out of the sky leaving behind a sizable welt in the ground without even a scratch and now they've disappeared without anyone being able to find them. Rather than ordinary children, perhaps they're some kind of powerful shape shifting monsters that merely took the appearance of children to fool and then attack us."

Orko's words seemed harsh, but his assessment was accurate. As Dani recalled her brother's bed time stories she remembered that their mother was no older than they were when she took the Grim Reaper on as a slave, since then fending off every manner of horror imaginable until the time that she entered middle school and only growing more powerful since that time. Indeed the matriarch of the Grim family was a monster that only looked like she was human. Pondering that question Daniela left the Man At Arms body with the later non the wiser.

"Another thing I wanted to talk about was where they came down." Eternia, the planet they were on, was a tectonically unstable world. One half of the planet was a massive volcanic wasteland, but through powerful magics and technology the other half of the world was stabilized through sheer brute force. One of these technologies, a atmospheric stablizer that made it possible to maintain a breathable atmosphere with the help of entire continents worth of greenery, was punctured by the meteoric arrival of the twins.

"We already sent word to Avion and Andreenos, they're flying craft is already on the move to the hole and their magicians are going to use air magic to patch the hole." Orkos explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

A second purpose behind the generator was to keep out the people of Eternia's dark hemisphere, a collection of races who had no intention of living within the boarders of the peace loving people of Eternia and so choose to stay in the harsh and barren dark half of the world. Likewise to protect their lands from the raids of these unruly thugs the Eternian people made use of the Atmosphere Generator as a massive force field, hence why only half of the planet was covered in greenery. Like wise like a large hole in a shield leading directly to the heart, the people of the dark hemisphere were quick to take notice of the massive gaping hole directly over their enemies capital.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: One Review, a disappointment, but moving on. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 2: A Guide to the Grim Family

"Commander can I talk to you?" One of the men under Man at arms had come to ask his commander's opinion. Ram Man was the not so clever pseudonym that he had been given, a fact that can attributed to his impressive speed in spite of a large bulky frame and his tendency to use that speed and bulk in combination with a helmet to slam his head into his enemies at full speed.

"Is there something the matter Ram Man?" The captain was working on one of his projects, various feats of rather impressive engineering had been lined up behind him.

"Well... doesn't it feel like everyone's been acting strangely lately?" Ram Man shuddered as he thought about something unpleasant. "I just ate a salad, and worst yet I think I liked it."

"Eating healthy isn't a bad thing Ram Man, but yes, it is unlike you." Man at Arms had similarly noticed that people weren't acting the same lately, it all started when those kids crashed down through the atmosphere shield, and now they couldn't find them. "Hmm. Ram Man tell me when was the last time you were in the library?" Man At Arms stated as he turned his attention to his work table.

* * *

Daniela was learning various things thanks to her repeat visits to the Eternian Library, chief among them being the language of this world, she was also getting a grasp on various forms of magic and technology of this world. Like the underworld that Dani called home Eternia was a inter-dimensional crossroads of sorts, where the physics that allowed for the use of various different scientific, magical and technological principles co-exist in relative harmony, principles that at times inherently canceled each other out, like mixing together baking soda and vinegar, Yet even such a compound has uses depending on what you add to it, with that in mind the people responsible for R&D in this world had to be very skilled innovators to stay on the cutting edge. Like Daniela was doing right now, course access to the highest level of Magi-technology in the land is not something just anyone can get their hands on. That is the reason why Daniela had to be careful with which persons she possesses, today she played it relatively safe and picked a person who had some expensive looking cybernetic implants, replacing your entire neck with machinery was no small feat after all. Thus having assumed that this person was a high ranking member of the guard Daniela took control of this 'Meckaneck' and went into the library for more research.

"GYAAHHH!" A loud buzz echoed through out the library as soon as Daniela-in-Meckaneck's body walked through the front door rendering them both unconscious.

"Oi oi oi. Was it really necessary to make the zap so powerful?" The cybernetically enhanced warrior whom Daniela borrowed was rubbing the back of said mechanical appendage quite sore over the whole 'used as a trap thing.'

"Does that mean we can get rid of the rest of these things now?" Ram Man asked indicating the miniature shock device that Man-At-Arms had mass produced and planted on their bodies, each of which was tuned to go off at locations that each individual applicant would never go of their own free will, as a precaution they even planted such a device on the prince seeing as how one of them seemed to like using his body so much.

"Oh..." Daniela pushed herself up off the floor of a holding cell, realizing where she was and who had caught her. "So I've been found out." Daniela examined her cell, her force field was colored green, and she noticed that it was a theme that extended to the rest of the cell too.

"We took the liberty of analyzing your energy field earlier, the same one you used to phase into and take over our comrades body. The field you're currently surrounded with cancels it out, and give you a nasty zap on top of that." Man at Arms sat in a chair as he glared down at the little eight year old. "We've been worried about you two you know."

"I heard you while I was pretending to be unconscious, you seem incapable of showing concern for someone who 'survived crashing into a planet.'" Daniela stated making her opinion of her verbal sparring partner clear.

"About not for, know the difference." Man at Arms clarified his tone one might use to scold a child when they had done wrong, which to be fair... "We knew from the moment we first laid eyes on the two of you that you were formidable enough to survive a head on collision with our atmosphere generator, following which you then shrug off what injuries you gained, up and disappear into thin air and proceed to harass my men and superiors delaying the repair of said generator in the process." And in that moment Daniela realized that she may have goofed up. "Now would you mind telling us where your brother is?"

"I have no idea." Daniela stated shrugging her shoulders.

"How do we find him?" Man At Arms asked cocking a suspicious brow.

"Why would I do that?" Daniela asked a puzzled expression on her features.

"The peace of mind of myself and my people?" Man at Arms asked looking suspicious.

"Why would I want to give you or your people peace of mind? I don't know anything about any of you." Daniela's face was still scrunched with confusion on the matter. "Oh sure, I've seen how you all act around each other, but I don't know you, any of you for that matter. So I can't know if we're compatible or not." Man At Arms cocked a brow at Daniela suspiciously. "For instance, you may claim that you and your 'Masters of the Universe' are good people and you are probably right." However Daniela's voice turned cold at this time. "But my family are not good people."

"Then why are you here?" Man At Arms was glaring now.

"Our family estate came under attack, as a last resort we were given that bit of parchment that your court jester has become so fond of which led us to somewhere we could obtain power. Which is to say here." Daniela explained having confirmed much of the suspicions of Man At Arms.

"To us?" Man At Arms asked cocking a interested brow.

"Or to your enemies and you simply had the good fortune to find us first." Daniela stated with a shrug of her shoulders. "Or bad fortune, depending on how things go with my brother."

"...What do you mean?" Man At Arms asked with a suspicious glare.

"I feel like telling you about my family now." Dani stated with a shrug of her shoulders. "My parents rule over one of the five largest territories in the Underworld, the Grim-Skull territory. Our father is known as the Grim Reaper, responsible for over seeing the passage of all souls from life, to death and back to life. Our Mother is Mandy Grim, a ruthless military commander rendered physically immortal by our father."

"Immortal?" That part surprised Man At Arms.

"As I said, our father oversees the passage of souls. If he doesn't take yours at the time of your death then you will not pass, while this in of itself doesn't stop another reaper from doing the deed though once he makes the decision to spare someone they become marked." Daniela explained calmly.

"So since your father is the 'Grim Reaper' then that means that his mark will keep all the other reapers from reaping her without consequence?" Man At Arms questioned suspiciously.

"No far from it." Daniela shook her head in the negative.

"Our father is considered a laughing stock in the Reaper community, when Mother was our age she successfully domesticated him like an animal. As a consequence his mark carries absolutely no respect what so ever. In fact he has enough enemies that if anyone were to realize that we were 'off limits' as you put it we would be swarmed by every horror imaginable, and several that you can't."

"... I see." As a father himself Man At Arms was a little taken aback by all of that. "So you've been marked with immortality as well?"

"Correct, though the Reaper raised us he is not our biological father. That particular honor goes to a Ghost we know not the name of." Daniela stated causing a spout of surprise from Man At Arms.

"A ghost?" The heavily armored warrior looked quite suspicious.

"Correct. Our chief suspect is the ruler of the neighboring realm, Walker." Daniela stated with a face full of seriousness.

"Continue." Man At Arms either did not believe her story or that she knew the truth of the matter.

"There are also the matters of my brothers and sister. My brother Grim Junior is the oldest of the four of us and a Reaper like the one who raised us, yet at the same time vastly different."

"... How vast?" Based on the title of 'laughing stock' the Grim Reaper should be effectively harmless. Which meant that Junior was not.

"He is host to a parasitic/symbiotic demonic organism called a Nergal, has been injected with our halfa cell cultures giving him access to vast stores of raw power for fuel his reaper and Demonic abilities. And all of that took place before he went on his own journey with the map." Daniela had a twinkle in her eyes now, like she was talking about her own personal idol. "And after..." Every thing Man At Arms heard about this Junior was serving to confirm is suspicions. "He had military, engineering and reconnaissance training. Also, he claimed that he ate a god, but he might have made that one up. We're not entirely sure."

"Riiight. You said you had a sister...?" Suddenly the entire building started to shake indicating that something was going on outside, and in that moment Daniela _knew_ that she done goofed up.

"Hey you said you wanted to know where my brother was right?" Daniela waited until the building started to shake again before she continued. "_That_ is where he is."

* * *

Up on the surface, a second of the shield generators protecting Eternia had fallen, and this time it was no small hole was made by a pair of lost brats. Eternia had two halfs, light and dark, one a peaceful and prosperous civilization, and the other a series of violent tribes to which only occasionally band together in the name of mutually assured goals. Like now. A muscular purple skinned man dressed like a barbarian with the skin of a rather hairy animal wrapped around his waist and another hanging off of his shoulders and over his head, yet he fought like a sorcerer with a scepter in hand blasting at the royal guards. And he wasn't the only sorcerer there, or rather sorceress, he was joined by a woman, one who liked her armor bony and laced on top of purple fabric, as for magic she seemed to like it fiery, large, explosive and slammed into the walls of the palace by the dozen. Course they didn't open up that big fat honking hole just so that two sorcerers could come in and start wrecking the place. Behind them were skeleton warriors, animated through necromancy and enhanced through the careful application of cybernetic technology, riding on top of vicious and savage looking magical creatures mounted with energy cannons of various shapes and sizes.

"Randor!" The cloaked man screeched in a high pitched voice at the castle, the sound of his voice dramatically amplified by some form of microphone type device in his hood. "I have come here to exact retribution for what you have done to me!"

The man in question, the king of these lands, looked down at the man who addressed him with a narrowed glare.

"This is going to be difficult." King Randor stated as he looked back at the person whom he seemed to have slighted.

"Yeah." Then the King looked off to his side to see his son, sporting one of his uncharacteristically psychotic grins. "But think of the fun!"

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**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Apparently. I recall writing comedy and adventure in the genre section.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**: Apologies for the delay, the other day a hurricane immigrated from the bahama's and moved into our province knocking out our collective power grid. Sadly it proved to be a lousy neighbor and only now have we returned to modern civilization. So with that in mind, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 3: A Guide to the Would Be Conqueror of Eternia

Keldor was walking through the ruins of the kingdom slowly, he was intent on savoring this occasion it would seem, his triumphant return to what he considered to be his birthright, so that he might burn it to the ground. Every building the mad ruler of the dark hemisphere saw was blasted through the use of Keldor's magic Ram skull staff, every citizen he encountered would quickly become food for the contingent of magical beasts that followed him, and shrubbery or greenery he encountered he had his men turn into so much fire wood. All of it, Keldor wanted nothing left of the legacy of Eternia but a barren desolate wasteland.

"KELDOR!" Responding to this... act of juvenile barbarism was Eternia's rightful king, dressed out in his full war gear. Unlike the barbarian sorcerer Keldor Randor very much looked like a knight, albeit a knight whose armor was mostly cybernetic and magical in nature augmenting every muscle fiber in his body and carrying a great chain sword. "You are going to pay dearly for what you have done today!"

"Wrong on both accounts _brother_ for..."

"Hahahahaha!" In spite of the fact that his face had been covered in a hood, you could see Keldor's eyes positively twitch with rage. Turning around Keldor turned the business end of his staff on the hairiest of his humanoid followers, a Beast Man if you will, who was on the verge bowling over with laughter.

"What's so funny!?" The menacing, creepy, somewhat nasally voice of Keldor asked as he glared at his subordinate. For his part the beast man looked like he was going to answer but suddenly burst out laughing again. "WHAT'S SO FUNNY!?"

"Dude you actually sound like that? I thought your megaphone had voice synthesizer!" As the beast man continued to laugh the eyes of Keldor were shaking with fury for several seconds as he came to terms with what was being said.

Then, unamused Keldor aimed his weapon at the laughing hairball in question and fired a single blast bringing him to his knees. The smarter members of the group of thugs, the sorceress, creased her eye brows at this exchange of events: Beast Man was already quite familiar with their master and the sound of his voice, why would he suddenly find it funny only now? There was also the matter of the blast from the scepter, normally that would have sent Beast Man flying as it had just before they had gotten there: why was it only knocking him down now?

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Clearly having not witnessed the fate of Beast Man, a cyborg with three interchangeable eyes built into his skull was suddenly laughing now too, more to the point his eyes had turned green, whereas before they were red, orange and yellow in that order. "He's right you know! You sound ridiculous! Did he always sound like that!?" The Tri-cloptic cyborg leaned over as he looked at King Randor.

The King, stunned, looked up into the air for a moment before locking eyes with the group of thugs and shook his head in the negative. Before Keldor could blast another of his subordinates for not holding his tongue however.

"You're not Tri-clops are you?" The sorceress asked boring a hole directly into the skull of the man in question.

"Hmm. Close. This is his body, I assume anyway, but he can't exactly come to the phone right now." The impostor, no, the body hopper stated as he was still giggling under his breath. "He is what you call... indisposed."

"Cute. Another portal to another world has opened up and dumped another other worlder into our midst. Tell me have you already sworn fealty to the king over there?" Keldor asked bitterly as he used his staff to indicate the man in question.

"What that guy?" Pointing at the king the individual in Tri-Clop's body fired a blast of Green energy at the king sending him flying backwards a considerable amount of distance. "I have no relation to him, I just landed here." Tri-clops/slightly-less-annoying-person-who-shot-at-Randor stated while he made a show of blowing the smoke off of his finger.

"Should I presume that was you who was in Beast Man's body just now?" Keldor asked while he aimed the business end of his staff at the still reeling Beast Man on the ground.

"Yeah, you knocked me loose when you hit me with your staff thingie." The Body hopper stated as he made a show out of cleaning the ears he had borrowed with the finger that did not belong to him. "I can't take control of a unconscious body after all."

"Good to know." On that note a second blast of magical energy was loosed from Keldor's staff blasting Tri-Clops in the gut and ejecting the apparently invisible body hopper from him. "Evil-lyn!" To her master's shout the sorceress tapped her staff on the floor creating a protective barrier around them that would hopefully keep the body hopper from taking any more of them.

"What!? Your name is _Evil_-lyn!" A child's voice echoed around them, yet in the same mocking tone as Keldor's subordinates when they suddenly burst out laughing at the sound of their master's voice.

"A child?" Keldor was legitimately surprised with this new development.

"Behold I am the Mighty Super Edgy Evil Edge Lord Keldor! Behold my edgy skull face staff and my super Edgy Evil Girl Friend Evil-lyn the Evil!" The child's voice had taken a suddenly deeper and intentionally mocking tone, more to the point it was coming from the opposite direction of where it was before.

"He's circling around! Trying to find a way past the barrier!" Evil-lyn warned as she readied her staff to blast at their target, and here they were without their chief surveillance expert and marksman.

"My name is not Keldor! That man died years ago at the hands of this foul king!" Keldor screeched, he would engage in this banter for the time being, as long as it found them this mocking body hopper.

"Oh really? Then who are you Mr. Evil Edgy Edgelord of Evil?" The Body hopper was still on that it would seem.

"My name is Skeletor!" The hooded man tore his hood back revealing his 'face' for the first time, not one of flesh and blood, but rather a white skull that floated neck-less above a empty hole black with darkness. For a period of time it seemed that the body hopper had been stunned into silence.

"HHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" This time the child made no effort to restrain his laughter, and it only made 'Skeletor's' anger rise even more. "Dude is that suppose to be scary? I grew up around people who were nothing but skin and bones without the skin!" Now Skeletor was the one taken back, his rage rising by the moment. "My dad's scarier then you and he got beat up by a little girl!"

"ENOUGH!" Skeletor slammed his staff into the ground and shatter the barrier with another bolt of magical energy. "I DECLARE YOU COWARD! SHOW ME YOUR FACE THIS INSTANT SO THAT I CAN LOOK YOU IN YOUR EYES AS I SQUEEZE THE LIFE FROM YOUR VEINS!"

"Boo!" Suddenly Manny, the face of the one who had set out to earn Skeletor's unending wrath, appeared right in front of his face making the would be conqueror step back startled.

That was all the opening Manny needed as he entered Skeletor's body and took him high up into the air at two hundred miles per hour, after a few minuets they were at roughly 30 miles into the air before Skeletor manage to force Manny out, leaving the would be conqueror of the realms in a sky diving lesson with no parachute.

"KKKYYYAAAHHH!"

"_IINT!_" Manny snorted as he made a legitimate effort to hold back his laughter. "Dude screams like a girl."

"CCCAAATTTCCCHHH MMMEEE!" Skeletor's free fall was stopped by a impromptu crash bag compose of his two unconscious henchmen piled upon their largest a huge fat lizard like man with a long tail.

"Are you okay?" A fish faced man asked his master as he moved to help him up. "I want... that child... brought to me... by the end of the day!" Skeletor was seething with rage at this point in time and it showed.

His various subordinates fled for their lives while Evil-Lyn scattered the army into the city to find the child. In front of the royal palace Manny used Skeletor's staff to pry the king out of the wall that he landed in when Manny blasted him.

"Was that really necessary?" Randor asked as Manny supported him.

"For Operation: Piss off Skull Face and Make Him Chase Me Out of the City? Yeah kind of." Manny stated with a smile. "No offense I like yah and all that, you remind me of my own Dad, but if we want him to follow me out then we gotta put the idea in his head that torturing you to get to me out of his head, and to do that we need to sever you and me." Manny's brilliant plan was also helped by the fact that he considered 'Skeletor' to be laughably foolish.

"'Skull Face?'" Randor asked looking confused.

"Yah know big purple dude, cape, skull for a face. He seemed to blame you for it." Now Randor knew what Manny was talking about. "There was an... incident. I doubt it would interest you." Randor looked uncomfortable about the whole thing.

"You're right it doesn't." Manny saw the mechanized skeletons coming straight at him now. "Welp I got things to do and people to break." Saying that Manny got ready to charge with the scepter.

"Once we have the army in order we'll send help for you." Randor stated sincerity all over his face as he looked at Manny.

"_IINT!_" Again Manny snorted. "I wouldn't do that if I was you!"

"Maybe but you're not." Saying that Randor watched as the child that he did not know what to make of charged directly into the cybernetic skeletons that were rampaging through the city.

* * *

"An army of Cybernetically enhanced undead, a hit squad consisting of elite warriors from the tribes of the Dark Hemisphere, and a pack of ferocious magical beasts and you do not look the least bit concerned about your brother." Man At Arms was busy coordinating the forces of the kingdom on the King's behalf, right now the Twins Manny and Dani where his two biggest assets to wit he needed to know what he was dealing with.

"Remember how I said that my Dad could make people immortal?" Dani was also doing her part, making use of a vast number of duplicates of herself to go out and secretly, intangibly, rescue as many people as possible. In fact she was even timing her rescues with the destruction being caused by Skeletor's forces, leaving behind piles of rubble with nothing buried beneath and confused monsters with nothing to eat.

"Yes but that just means that Keldor can gain infinite amusement out of torturing him until his mind breaks, and then we'll have to deal with the fact that Keldor will have a extremely powerful new minion under his thumb." Man At Arms stated as he narrowed his glare at Dani.

"You don't know my brother very well do you?" Dani asked cocking a suspicious brow.

"You don't know what you're dealing with either." Man At Arms stated letting out a sigh. "Let's assume for a moment that you're right and Keldor isn't capable of breaking your brother to his whims. What do we have to work with when it comes to you two?"

"As you've seen already I can mass duplicate my form, possess people, float in the air and pass through solid objects. Manny can shatter buildings with the sound of his voice, fly at two hundred miles per hour, fire off energy beams, balls of explosive energy, possess people and turn invisible, but he can't do those last two as well as me." Dani stated as another of the possessed civilians floated into the underground prison turned emergency bunker.

"For siblings those sound like some sharp contrasts in powers." Man At Arms stated arms crossed.

"Eh. It all stems from the same power set, like how someone who lifts weights is going to be stronger than a distance runner or how a runner is going to be faster then a weight lifter." Dani explained in a surprisingly mundane fashion.

"Understood. Now that Keldor has divided up his forces we can begin picking them off one by one." A hit squad is called a hit squad for a reason, they work best when they're working together, but now that they had been divided up? They can be knocked down.

* * *

Underneath the sewers of Eternia a fish-man and a lobster person were walking through the underground passage way, the fish stopped the lobster all of a sudden though.

"Do you hear that?" The fish could pick up the sound of faint splashing from far away, all of a sudden he could feel the ground start to rumble.

"RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!" Suddenly the two looked on wide eyed as a giant bull of a man charged straight at them full tilt in the narrow corridor. Even if they could strike at him with no where to go they'd still get crushed by his momentum and thus had no other choice but to turn around and flee as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough.

* * *

On the surface a ghoulish looking man with a mechanical arm and various other cybernetic implants was using a laser attachment on said arm to blast at various buildings hoping, and for the most part failing, to find the child that had earned Skeletor's wrath.

"Krhaaa!" Looking over his shoulder the ghoulish cyborg saw a man with his own cybernetic implant, a head assembly which at the moment was built around a even more monstrous looking face than his, bouncing a electrified mace in his hand threateningly.

* * *

While the rest of the Evil Warriors were out rampaging about the lizard man was stuck with the thankless task of watching over Tri-Clops and Beast Man's unconscious form. The cyborg was their chief engineer and the hairy lummox was the one responsible for looking after the master's creatures, in comparison to the rest of them they were considered to be _slightly_ more valuable so making sure that they weren't killed or captured was considered to be a priority.

"Ah. Why do I have to look after these dead weights?" The depressed looking lizard person complained.

"Three idiots for the price of one." A man with bird wing like cybernetics attached to his arms was busy planting a bomb between one of the statues of the elders and the wall of the castle. Once the bird man had reached a safe distance, he blew the bomb, and to the horror of the lizard man it all came down on him.

* * *

"It would appear that the shock and awe of our unexpected arrival has passed." Wasted more accurately in Evil-lyn's opinion, on a child no less. Albeit a extremely... Unusual child. Provided he can captured she can work her magics to turn him to their side and raise him as an Evil Warrior, provided they can find him. For now though they had another issue: The army of Eternia were marching towards them in unison.

"Deploy the Evil Horde!" Like wise the cybernetically enhanced skeletons were deployed enforce as well to meet the enemy head on.

Yet the Army of Eternia were not afraid, for they fought as one: literally. Once she had finished evacuating the citizenry, Dani had been deployed to similarly possess and rally the army. Their extensive years of experience, muscle memory attuned to the art of war and vast about of technological and magical equipment was combined with Dani's lack of fear for the enemy and the innate telepathic link that existed between all the clones. Conversely while the overall stats of the skeletons were much higher they were only capable of following basic commands, even though they outnumbered the Eternian army four to one.

"Now how does this work?" Hearing that child's voice again Skeletor and Evil-Lyn turned around to face Manny, waving Skeletor's staff around like it was a magic wand. "Bibbity..."

"Give that you wretched child!" Skeletor grabbed hold of the staff and ripped it out of Manny's grasp. "It is not a toy!"

"Well you're no fun!" Saying that Manny prepared a deep breath as the two magic users prepared to blast him. "WWAAOOOOOUUUUUUAAALLLL!" Suddenly the two magic casters were blasted at point blank range by one of Manny's strongest attacks, before that is he realized that he had goofed up a little bit. "Damn I was to chase them out not in!" Saying that, Manny zoomed over and intercepted the pair's falling arc. "WWAAOOOOOUUUUUUAAALLLL!" With a second blast of Ghostly Wail Manny had flung the two leaders of the Evil Warriors out of the city, and others took advantage. "RETREAT!" The Fish man, battered and bruised, sounded the alarm and the mechanized skeletons were abandoned to fight the army on their own while the Evil Warriors followed their Master's arc out of the kingdom, being chased after by a psychotic ghost child.

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Man at Arms is his title not his name, I've essentially been calling him 'The Captain' all this time. I thought it was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author Notes**: Only one review, well given my track record with other Grim Tales stories I shouldn't be surprised. Alright I'll make my decision whether I should continue this story or not after I've published all the chapters I've got.

* * *

Chapter 4: A Guide to Annoying the Evil Warriors

Manny had chased Skeletor and his Evil Warriors back through the dark continent. Chased though might be the wrong word though, Skeletor preferred 'lured' the correct term or phrase might be 'repeatedly blast the target with ghostly sonic attacks while continuously chasing after it until Manny tired himself out.' Either way the Evil Warriors had their prisoner safely secured away.

"This had better be worth it." The cybernetically enhanced orc like man stated as he used what suspiciously looked like a sowing machine attachment to his arm to stitch up his master. "We're running out of stitches."

With his job done Skeletor reward his medic with a blast sending him flying.

"Evil-lyn, how is our newest member?" Skeletor stated looking to the young boy who was heavily chained to the floor of the room, gone was the white hair and albino blue skin replaced with a child that looked... overwhelmingly normal.

"'Newest member?'" Manny questioned looking over towards the abused medic. "I don't know who they are but you should probably advise them on a different career job."

"I'll be sure to let him know. In fact I think I'll do it now!" Skeletor snapped as he walked over and loomed over Manny. "GET A JOB BRAT!"

Admittedly it took Manny a minuet to figure out what was just said.

"Oh I'm your new recruit!" Now that the fact sunk in that naturally led to the next question. "What does it pay in exactly?"

"As far as you are concerned bodily upgrades!" At Skeletor's command a rack with numerous cybernetic parts was brought, some resembled the arm with the interchangeable bits and bobs that the medic was using, others the interchangeable trio of eyes that Tri-Clops had attached to his head. Course Skeletor had no intention of raising a child, adopted or otherwise, the pay off would take far, far too long in his opinion to be worth it. He wanted his new weapon to bludgeon the masses of Eternia into submission with, and he wanted it now! "Tri-Clops, prepare for surgery. Evil-lyn..." Once again Manny snorted as he giggled in place, and the fury in Skeletor's otherwise empty eye sockets made his opinion on this matter clear. "Start with removing that annoying sense of humor of his."

"We both know that's not going to work." Though Manny still got a laugh out of thought anyway.

"With pleasure Skeletor!" Saying that Evil-Lyn loomed over Manny and aimed her staff at his head. Using a dark magic spell Evil-lyn entered the boy's mind, and to her lack of surprise found very little. "Empty. I'm not surprised." Between Manny's age and his lack of intelligence his head shouldn't have had much to it to begin with. No matter, the less work she had to do concerning the matter and all that. "Now then let's start with..."

Then the empty space that should have had no substance in it shook, the ground beneath her that her feet could not touch cracked open and out from it emerged the hand of a gigantic figure which then slammed down beside Evil-lyn, and was followed up the rest of the space beneath her shattering to reveal the gigantic form of a red eyed, blonde haired demonic woman.

"Piss off!" Then the woman fired a gun whose barrel alone was big enough for Evil-lyn to walk into directly on the dark Sorceress at point blank Range.

"GAH!" Evil-lyn was violently snapped back to reality and fell on her behind backing away from Manny with a touch of fear legitimately on her features.

"Told yah it wasn't going to work." Manny stated shrugging his shoulders.

"What happened?" Skeletor asked legitimately concerned.

"A mental block." Evil-lyn stated as she calmed and composed herself. "A powerful one at that, designed specifically to inject terror into the very soul of whom ever tries to breach it."

"Remove it!" Skeletor stated without a hit of patience.

"That would be nearly impossible." Evil-lyn stated in response.

"I was referring to his head." Skeletor snapped slamming the butt of his staff into the ground. Already the man with the interchangeable arms readied a huge crab claw like contraption to snap Manny's head clean off. If his brain wasn't going to be any good then they'd just salvage the parts that were.

"That's not going to work either." Manny warned fearlessly looking at the metal crab claw.

Remembering Evil-lyn's reaction from earlier the man with the mechanical arm backed away from the child less than a quarter of his age.

"Trap Jaw, either his head comes off or yours does!" Skeletor threatened already standing up from his seat.

With that motivation at hand Trap Jaw snapped his claw down on Manny's neck, successfully removing his head with a snap.

"Whew. Glad that's over." Trap Jaw stated sounding his exhaustion and wiping his forehead sweat with his biological arm.

"Me too." Trap Jaw froze in fear, then looked down at the head locked in his hand and saw it smiling at him. "Nice arm."

"KKKYYYAAAHHH!" Trap Jaw threw the head in the air as he panicked, falling over himself as he tried to get away. Manny's head, his severed head, turned into a misty smoke like substance and entered the hole where the head was and eventually reformed his body after a few minuets.

"_IINT!_" And again Manny snorted. "You scream like a girl too." So to recap, they can't brain wash him, and they can't convert him into a mindless drone.

"A shame but it would seem that we have to kill you." Skeletor really didn't look too beat up about it as he pulled out his list of 'horrible ways I want to kill people I don't like.'

"Uh hey I got a question." The lobster man, a rather simple minded individual, asked as he looked over to Manny. "Why aren't you trying to escape?"

"I exhausted my ecto reserves just getting here, I need to wait until I recharge until I can transform again."

"Oh really?" You could see the malice forming in Skeletor's features.

Snake Mountain got it's name from it's rather close resemblance to a giant serpent wrapped around a stalagmite, albeit a giant serpent that had lava drooling from it's mouth. Which led to the current situation, Manny tied up with chains kneeling over the edge of the 'mouth' of the serpent.

"Do please remember to scream for me: I've always wanted to know how far down it is." Skeletor stated the malice clear in his nasally voice.

"I can do that." Manny however was not remotely concerned, a fact that irked the shrieking skull faced villain. "I seem to be having a hard time moving, can someone give me a push?" Infuriated Skeletor slammed his foot into Manny's back. "HHHYYYAAAHHH!" And Manny let out a excited scream all the way down, like a child jumping off the high diving board at their local YMCA. Skeletor made sure to watch him all the way down until he splashed in the lake of lava below.

"Good bye, and good riddance." Saying that Skeletor went back to his chambers, now that his sneak attack had been parted he needed to come up with a new plan to dismantle the factions of the Light Hemisphere, ignorant to the fact that thousands of feet below a child's hand reached out of the lava and pulled the rest of the child out.

* * *

Back in Eternia's capital the process for rebuilding was on the way, soldiers had been treated for their injuries and cranes had been set up to move chunks of wood. There was some rocky weather at the moment in the form of some lightning storms but it wasn't anything that wasn't being handled.

"With the generators online and the army whipped back into working order the next matter that needs to be addressed is a rescue mission." The 'Masters of the Universe' as they called themselves consisted of Man At Arms, a veteran warrior and genius mechanic with several augmentations including a arm that could transform into a gun.

The others consisted of Stratos of Avion a member of a tribe of people who made use of rocket thrusters and cybernetic bird wings to fly in the air very much like a bird. Ram Man a huge built man with heavy body armor fond of charging at his enemies like a bull. Meckaneck, a one time cripple who had his entire body riddled with cybernetics the most notable of which consisted of a neck type contraption that could extend dozens of feet into the air. The final of the Master's was also the most bizarre, Man-E-Faces, one part stuntman/actor, one part cursed beast transformation, and one part robotic cyborg with a face and a personality to match each.

"When Skeletor left he took a child with him, one who possesses great and formidable power. We cannot, under any circumstances, allow harm to come to this boy."

"I hate to interrupt but I just found this." Daniela floated up to Man At Arms eye level and handed him a note.

"...I can't read it."

"I don't blame you. Even if you did understand our language Manny's handwriting is atrocious." Daniela explained as she took the note back and began reading it. "Ahem. 'Hey sis, just dropping by for some...'" Daniela squinted as she seemed to struggle with next word for a moment. "Food and clothing I think."

"Clothes?" Man At Arms asked quite astonished.

"Yes. It would seem that Skeletor threw him into a lava pool and they got incinerated in the process. And according to this he flew back to 'volcanic snake land' to 'torture bone head and his cronies until either they give up or until I get bored.'"

"You're joking right?" Man At Arms was both surprised and confused.

"I mentioned that we're immortal right? Or do you need a demonstration?" Suddenly Daniela took the laser gun off of Man-E-Faces pressed it to her chin and fired.

In a instant, and to the horror of the Master's especially Man At Arms who had a daughter of his own not too much older than Daniela, the laser beam carved through Daniela's head leaving a hole big enough for them to see through as she lifelessly fell to the ground. Then as quickly as it appeared the hole in her head disappeared, filled in and sealed back up like it was never even there to begin with, much to the shock of the Master's of the Universe.

"What just...?" Man-E-Faces had seen some impressive special effects in his day, but that blew it out of the water.

"Manny can't die! He's too much a masochist to be tortured and thanks to some thorough mental blocks by our mother I doubt he can be brainwashed either." Daniela stated growing annoyed by having to explain this over and over again.

"Even so what could he possibly be planning to do to Keldor's group?" Man At Arms asked as he let the fact sink that yes, a eight year old child was infinitely better off in the heart of enemy territory than all of them combined.

"Any of you have siblings? Specifically an annoying little brother?" Daniela asked prompting some confusion in the group's faces from all but Man At Arms. "Imagine that, but worst, with absolutely no way of stopping him including grounding, maiming, murdering, destruction of personal belongings, intimidation or torture." For the longest period of time the group sat around as the implications of what was going on slowly sunk in. Then, without word Man At Arms put his helmet back on before changing the topic.

"Stay on alert, even though the danger has passed we could see unexpected rioting or larceny occur." Saying that Man At Arms promptly went on patrol, leaving his confused men to scatter and do the same.

* * *

"Hmm." Skeletor sat in his study, watching the footage from one of Tri-Clops scout drones play out before him. "The tension between Avion and Andreenos is exceptionally high lately. If war was to break out now, then that would leave the ambrosia that gives the bee's so much fighting power open for taking."

"_IINT!_" Skeletor recognized that snort, turning around he saw Manny floating directly behind him. "Big Bad Evil Overlord likes honey!"

"GUARDS!"

The Evil Warriors came in and clashed briefly with Manny, as a consequence there was now a giant Ghostly Wail carved hole where Skeletor's private study had been. Eventually Evil-Lyn was brought in to cast a magic barrier around Manny thereby capturing him.

"How did you survive!?" Skeletor snapped having clearly witnessed Manny's body falling into the pool of lava formed by the dripping mouth of snake mountain.

"I swam out." Manny did not understand Skeletor's question. "Honestly if chopping my head off didn't do me in I've no idea why you thought throwing me into the lava pool was going to do me in. Seems kinda stupid to me." Skeletor's face was twitching now, infuriated beyond any measure of reason and it was showing plain as day. Spinning around he turned to face his numerous subordinates.

"I'm feeling generous right now so I'm opening the floor to ideas."

* * *

Suggestion 1: Human sacrifice.

"Given the amount of time and effort it took us to get him here it would be a shame to not make use of him." Evil-Lyn stated as she finished the preparations for some nasty fluid in her cauldron. "Towards this end, I present Cthulu's Crossing. In exchange for a ritualized sacrifice of a being of great power, we will be able to summon and control an eldritch creature of great power, and dispose of a annoyance in the process."

"Excellent work Evil-lyn!" Skeletor stated with a smile on his bony face. "This is the reason why you are my second in command."

"It won't work!" Manny shouted, suspended high above the cauldron in a bird cage.

"We will see!" The chain was released, and Manny was plunged deep into the portal like contents of the cauldron, with a flash of light and a wail immaterial tentacles rose up from the vat and started to take form, casting a huge shadow over the evil warriors.

"It's working! It's...!" Then as suddenly as they had started they stopped, the tentacles returned to the cauldron and spat out Manny like a customer who got the wrong order at a fast food joint leaving Evil-lyn stunned with amazement.

"Uh. He must taste terrible." Beast Man commented prompting his master to fly off into a rage again.

"Next!"

* * *

Suggestion 2: Feeding Time.

"Beast Man. I seem to recall you being the one who said the boy was inedible." Skeletor asked as he tapped his fingers in annoyance.

"Yes, but that's the reason why I chose a basilisk." Beast man explained gesturing to the giant dark green snake monster in question.

"It has no sense of taste!" As a rule Carnivores had a poorer sense of taste than herbivores, taste was something that originally developed as a way of warning an animal if something was poisonous or not, since meat was typically not poisoned, as that would be detriment to the survival of the animal the meat came from, a carnivore's sense of taste was often very poor. Doubly so for snakes like the basilisk which did not chew their food and instead swallowed their meals whole and therefore did not have sense of taste.

"Well it's worth a try." Saying that Skeletor used his staff to push the captive Manny forward.

"Eh. I can use a bath anyway." The snake snapped down on the nonchalant Manny and swallowed him whole, sending the boy directly into the snake's stomach. "I love this part." Saying that, the Acid rapidly began breaking down Manny's body, at the same time though Manny's immortality rapidly built it back up. The amount of digested material rapidly built up inside of the snake's belly until it had no where to go. The snake started making a strange face like it was going to hurl.

"Why am I not surprised?" Saying that Skeletor and his Evil Warriors were covered in vomit as the snake emptied it's stomach, Manny sliding up to his feet in the process. "The next person who suggests 'feed him to something' winds up on the dinner menu."

* * *

Suggestion 3: Vaporization.

"I do hope you know what you're doing Tri-Clops, the last attempt was quite messy." The three eyed cyborg in question was at a console rapidly punching keys, next to him was a machine that Manny had been strung up in as energy ominously charged.

"Quite sure Lord Skeletor! If we vaporize him down to the last molecule he won't have anything to reform from!" Fully assured of his success Tri-Clops prepared to fire his machine.

"Any last words brat?" Tri-Clops asked smirking knowingly.

"Not my last words." Manny replied shrugging his shoulders. "...Firing up the machine." Saying that Tri-Clops hit enter, and a huge surge of energy was released into Manny's body and in a burst of light, he had vanished.

"Did we do it?" Beast man was naturally off set.

"I don't see him." The lobster Man followed up.

"It would seem, that one of you finally succeeded in disposing of that annoying pest!" Skeletor was already standing up, fully prepared to celebrate...

"Wow I would not want to be that guy." Before his hopes were promptly shot down, looking over to see Manny unharmed and floating next to him.

"RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!"

* * *

Suggestion 4: Lock Him Up.

"Since it would seem we cannot actually get rid of him we should probably just put him somewhere he cannot annoy us." Evil-lyn stated as she cast a protective barrier around Manny.

"I accept you challenge!" Manny replied with a smile. Thus, inside of the deepest depths of Snake Mountain, Manny was locked in a cell, and the resident Sorceress of Snake Mountain cast a barrier that he could not phase through around the cell. If all went to plan, he would go mad from starvation in this place until even his immortality could no longer bare the strain. "Wow I'd guess I'm never getting out of here eh?" Somehow Manny did not look too concerned. Then clearing his throat Manny remembered a certain something that he learned on TV that could drive even his brother insane.

"Ahem. Huu!

_**Big brothers shouldn't bully or degrade,**_

_**be sugar sweet,**_

_**not lemonade!**_

_**Do not partake in sibling rivalries,**_

_**cherish, your family!**_

_**Big brothers ought to be role models so,**_

_**be kind to your young bro!**_"

Like that Manny sung in a voice that was so deep and finely tuned that it would easily make a opera singer murderous with envy. As it stood now it just made people murderous with pain, the sound of it dramatically amplified through the use of Manny's Ghostly Wail until it bled the ear drums and shook the bones of every denizen of Snake Mountain.

"Uh hey I've got a question?" Evil-lyn was perplexed as Manny started talking in spite of spitting out that ear bleeding racket, then she actually saw him and realized that he at some point in time grew a second head. So deciding that she would just run with it and the craziness that ensued Evil-lyn replied.

"What!?" The Sorceress snapped her patience draining away from her like a tidal flood.

"Why do you guys listen to that skull faced loser?" The second Manny head asked scratching the side of his head.

"Myself? My personal ambitions, the others, fear of what he would do to them should they not comply!" Evil-lyn explained even as she tried to block out the noise from Manny's singing with her hands.

"Is it any worst then what I'm doing now?" Manny asked with a shrug of his shoulders. "...Admittedly no, your talents are quite... impressive."

Admittedly Manny was a good singer, it was his volume that was causing the people of Snake Mountain Pain at the moment.

"So why are they still listening to him?" While Manny left them with a interesting tidbit to ponder the fact remained that they still had to do something about him, initially they were content to let him continue, figuring that he would tire himself out eventually. He didn't. Which now led them directly to...

* * *

Suggestion 5: Just Get Rid Of Him!

With that decided Evil-Lyn used her magic to teleport Manny directly to the border of Eternia. Even if he did decide to fly back to Snake Mountain it would buy them a few hours of peace.

"My work is done!" A Eternian patrol picked Manny up and brought him back to the Capital where he was outfitted with some clothes that were not dissolved away in some snake monster's gullet before he was taken to the king for a audience. "You had us all very worried you know." Man At Arms stated while Manny floated beside him. "Your sister has been very worried about you, you do know right?" Man At Arms asked as he led Manny into the palace.

"Minnie's here?" Manny asked having completely missed the point.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response." To give the boy Credit, Man At Arms was talking about the Daniela who completely dismissed the idea of a rescue mission so yes he was lying.

Manny and his sister were definitely the youngest people to ever hold an audience with King Randor, so credit where it was due, the halls of the throne room were packed full of cheering citizens who wished to express their deepest thanks to the two young heroes who protected them and beat back Skeletor's forces.

"For your actions in the past couple of weeks you have our deepest and most sincere of thanks." The two Twins bowed to the King, pointedly ignoring the fact that it was them crashing through the shield that led to this situation in the first place. "If there is anything within my power that I can do to help you, you need only to ask." The Two twins looked at each other before turning to face the king.

"When we came to these lands we were fleeing an attack by a massive coalition of our parents enemies, we were given that Map you found by our parents and told to come back when we were strong enough to fight." Narrowing his eyes the King sent for Orko, and he in turn brought back the chest he secured with the map inside of it. "It's not working." Daniela stated as she tried and failed to open the scroll up.

"Is it possible that it's magics is incompatible with Eternia?" Orko suggested with one finger in the air.

"Then why would it bring us here in the first place?" Daniela asked cocking a suspicious brow. "No. The power to turn the tide of a war is definitely here."

"Or maybe it decided to strand you two here, because going back would be too dangerous?" Man At Arms suggested as he knelled down beside the two children. "A disturbing possibility. One we may have to live with."

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Don't worry, he'll get them. That you do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note**: Okay so slightly more satisfactory number of reviews now. Eh, I'll finish this story arc before I decide if I want to do another story instead.

* * *

Chapter 5: The Prince's Birthday

Eternia's prince was now a young man of only slightly, very slightly, less than sixteen, with Blonde hair, blue eyes and squared features he was the spitting image of his father at his age. Complete with being pinned down during combat practice by a more experienced opponent. Teela was the same age as Adam, long brown hair flowed off of the top of the back of her head in a pony tail that led all the way down to the hem of her kilt, her body built like a tightly wound spring with all the agility that implies.

"Yield!" Teela snapped pressing the sharp end of her spear at the back of Adam's neck.

"I yield!" Adam stated with a literal blade against his neck.

At once the female warrior walked up to a stone wall on the side of the training and added another notch with her spear to the chart, one of many tallies listed in her name, opposite to her name was Adam's with only a few tallies to his name.

"Another one for me." Teela stated her voice pure cockiness.

"Yes you must be having a awful lot of fun spending the day out here training with your boyfriend while I'm cooped up inside all day learning how to run a kingdom." Adam's voice was full of scathing sarcasm.

"Speaking of which, have either of you seen the twins today?" Age had not made Man At Arms any less burly, on the contrary his armor looked like it integrated even more bulk than before, as if his muscle mass had dramatically increased over the years.

"Dani? She was inside helping to tutor me in dinner etiquette." Adam stated gesturing to the palace. Coincidentally the normally lackadaisical prince took a sharp interest in his royal studies around the same time he hit puberty, the fact that Daniela's upbringing before coming here gave her much intimate knowledge of matters of politics and etiquette surely had nothing to do with it.

"Manny broke another sparring partner." Teela stated indicating the broken pile of robotic parts behind her. "He went for one of his daily bathes."

"And you didn't join him?" Adam stated the teasing tone in his voice quite clear. Manny was considered quite attractive for a fourteen year old, the fact that he was fourteen years old and was already built like a fully grown man was likely a major factor.

"His _first_ bath of the day." Teela corrected a disturbed look on her face.

"...Oh." Adam shared a similarly disturbed look.

* * *

Manny had his own private bath separate from the rest of the soldiers, and for that matter the rest of the Master's of the Universe as well. As usual this was a privilege that Manny had earned through sheer overwhelming audacity, for after he was eaten by Beast Man's basilisk as a child he discovered a notable increase in muscle mass as a consequence. The technical term was overcompensation, the phenomena where muscle tissue is built in response to the strain of exercising, in this case though the 'exercise' was the strain of having his body dissolved away and rebuilt through his immortality. Upon figuring this out, to the immeasurable horror of everyone at the castle, Manny went to the nearest swamp, captured a man eating slime, brought it back to the castle, blasted a hole into the grounds next to the barracks and dumped the slime inside for a bath. Naturally they made Manny take it back to the swamp, but his response was to just build a shack there that he would use for housing his personal bathing assistant. At first it was a sight of pure horror, the flesh sloughed off of Manny's bones and he screamed in what the Master's still weren't sure to this day was pain beyond their most horrible nightmares or ecstasy beyond their wildest dreams, granted given the fact that he was only eight years old at the time none of them really wanted to find out. Within a year of this daily regimen of self abuse however Manny had adapted to the process and had been massively increased in strength, not only that but the slime also recreated the conditions for the embryonic growth cycle and consequentially the fastest period of growth of the human body. The Current Manny was six feet tall and weighed approximately 400 pounds, the majority of which consisted of densely packed muscle, bone and a little bit of calloused skin tissue, not only that but some how at some point in time he started to grow redundant organs too, hearts, lungs, kidney's and the like started to show up on the medical scans conducted on him in the name of perverse scientific curiosity. Whatever brand of human he was when they first met him, it was like he was a totally different being now.

"Eh. Better clean up before the big day."

Thus Manny stood up and walked out of the pool of slime, the ground dissolving away underneath his feet as he walked along to the second bath, the legitimate bath that would wash away the slime on his body. Around the same time a falcon flew over head and landed on a post next to Manny, which then transformed into a form that was equal parts familiar and bizarre for this one time bird was Daniela. Unlike Manny Dani actually had the proportions of a fourteen year old human being, though very much nothing like a normal human being was the large set of angel like wings behind her and circuit board like pattern that covered her skin and servo like devices at her joints. The path of power that Daniela pursued was very different when compared to Manny, unlike Manny who sought bigger muscles Daniela pursued knowledge. Originally she pursued technology, an apprentice ship under Man At Arms where she gained access to a specific brand of cybernetic augmentation, strings of artificial muscle tissue that had been wired through her muscles, with additional strands of durability oriented metals weaved into her skin and bones with sub-dermal implants, designed to add to the strings of metal as needed as she grew. When technology had run out Daniela began to pursue magic and thus entered into a new apprentice ship underneath the guardian of Grey Skull the Sorceress, and so learned the power of anthropomorphism and some potent battle magic and symbolizing her apprenticeship under the sorceress Daniela wore a Egyptian style outfit capped with a falcon shaped helmet. Still she hadn't learned what she wanted to know yet.

"Hey sis. Afraid you caught me when I was a touch... indecent." Manny stated as he reveled in his manhood.

"Yes I know every muscle in your body is huge I'm aware and I try not to think about it. I just came to pick up my research materials." Daniela took out a measuring cup and used it to extract and jar a sample of the slime left behind in the original bathing pool.

The slime had undergone a mutation thanks to constantly feeding off of Manny. Integrating the completely alien chemicals in Manny's blood that made him half ghost, the end result could be said that now the slime was half ghost too, and thus a prime source of experimentation for Daniela.

"Should I be concerned that you have a bizarre fascination with bottling my bath water?" Manny asked with a suspicious look on his face.

"No more concerned than I should be that you bath inside of the bellies of a carnivorous mutant slime." Daniela replied as she finished her sample collection.

"That's a mighty strange birthday gift for the prince." Manny mocked to no response from his sister who turned back into a bird and carried her sample jar away.

Daniela had little intention of going to the Prince's birthday party, for many years now her one and only obsession has been unlocking the secrets of the infi-map, trying to locate it's confounding secrets and why it no longer responded to her. It was not damaged in the landing, so Daniela's examination revealed, so that led her to the conclusion that it would not function in this realm of Eternia. Instead Daniela had to recreate the Ghost Zone where the Infi-map originated from, towards this end she spent years harvesting the liquid ecto from herself and her brother, their immortality instantly replacing their lost flesh and through many years of patient labor was able to salvage enough to get this ecto portal very nearly ready.

"Huu. I need a break." Daniela had dark bags forming under her eyes from lack of sleep. Daniela removed her helmet and torso armor assembly and dressed a dummy in it before she crawled onto a pile of hay to sleep.

In her own way Daniela was stalling, for the longest period of time there was a nightmare that haunted her, a possibility that she would refuse to acknowledge, that the reason why the Infi-map refused to obey her was because here was where she belonged. That she had wasted over half of a decade that she was suppose to spend acquiring power on a pointless endeavor to build a key to a gate that would have one day open up had she been doing what she was sent here to do. It wasn't good for her health, even for an immortal, especially for a immortal.

* * *

Adam's birthday party was now in full swing, he was dressed appropriately for the occasion and the throne room of Eternia had been filled to the brim with the nobles of the kingdom, various guests for and the Master's of the Universe. Firstly was the matter of the gifts from the many guests, in occasions such as these the order in which gifts are opened are considered a not too subtle way of telling the givers of such gifts the order in which they value their contributions to the kingdom. And in a massive flex on them and their brown nosing, Adam picked up each of the their gifts and sat them aside as he found the ones that he was looking for, locating a small envelope sized package at the bottom of the pile. Of course young Adam opened the gifts from his parents first, a great sword from his father, forged from fine Eternian spring steel, and a jeweled sheath from his mother made from the scaly hide of a dragon and as good as the finest shield in a pinch. But after his parents came Daniela's envelope, and after a moment of shaking a small slotted medallion type device was revealed.

"What is it?" Adam held the device to the light as he examined it. "One of Dani's inventions?"

"It's a vibrator." Adam was nearly floored by the explanation, the culprit in question was watching Adam with amusement two women of noble baring on either side of him. "You attach it to your sword, it starts vibrating at a super high frequency and helps to cut through anything." Manny explained ignoring the innuendo he had just cracked.

"Manny... please never explain anything ever again." Adam stated as the court laughed at his expense.

Still many who pined for the prince's favor were frustrated at how year after year he would show his favor to some wench of low status who cannot even be bothered to show up to receive his favor. Adam however knew Dani, knew that she despised the blatant harassment of people she considered to be so far off her list of priorities they had not even a name. Hence Daniela received the title of 'Queen of the After Party' where she saved her jubilation in relative privacy far away from jealous eyes, Adam for his part while he desired to show off his crush he understood her reasoning, and in fact even appreciated it.

"Here's hoping your gift isn't as lewd as your jokes Manny." Adam stated as he opened it up to reveal a sticky pad like bundle of paper, though what was written on it exceeded all expectations. "Ah eh..." With Adam stunned Manny saw his opening and pounced.

"It's a calendar, for all your many future princely meetings and responsibilities." Manny stated a knowing smirk all over his face.

"I must admit Manuel that was very thoughtful of you." King Randor approached behind his son mostly to prod him into opening the gifts from the individuals that he desired to curry favor with. "I half expected you..." Then he saw the gift in question, 'Days Till Dani's Legal' written at the top of the thick calendar. "Huu... Once again you have exceeded all expectations placed on you." King Randor immediately snatched the bundle from his son's hands and handed it to one of his guard's to put somewhere appropriate, like a fire place. "Let us move on with the proceedings then shall we?"

Laughing Manny walking out to the balcony where Ram Man could be found, ripping into the leg of a rather large bird with his teeth.

"Nice one." Manny and Ram Man fist bumped with one another.

"Thank you, I considered a tiny umbrella but I remembered how old we actually are." Manny stated leaving the latest of the innuendo's fresh in the metal plated skull of Ram Man.

* * *

On the boarder of Eternia, next to one of the atmospheric generators that maintain the prosperity of the lands within, a mound of dirt that had been left undisturbed for nearly eight years made way for a long since buried drone. The Drone shined a red targeting light on the generator's receiver downloading new instructions for the generator. On the coast several tornados had formed creating giant tubes connecting ocean and the sky. As the tide on the ocean receded storm clouds rapidly started to appear in the air and soon covered all of Eternia in dark clouds until the sun was blocked out.

* * *

"Oh... Bad weather." Manny stated looking outside. "Remind me did the king schedule rain for today?"

"On Adam's birthday?" Ram Man asked cocking a suspicious brow. "This will ruin the skyball game later today."

Indeed Skyball by definition required clear sunny skies to work under optimum conditions, yet it was the kingdom who controlled Eternia's weather through the use of the atmosphere generator.

"And to think: I thought today was going to be boring." Through the air Manny saw a figure flying in a crooked zigzagged pattern as it approached the royal palace. "Dude shouldn't be flying in a thunderstorm." Saying that Manny rather hypocritically jumped out the window and flew over to the crooked figure in the sky and snatched him out of the sky with the precision of a hornet hunting a butterfly. "A Spleian?" The individual Manny rescued resembled a large humanoid vampire bat, which might have explained why he was covered in blood. "Oh you must wanna see your king, I'll take you to the party." Manny flew back to where he had come carrying and dropping the vampire looking fellow off on the balcony. Immediately all eyes were on the bloodied bat stumbling through the room.

"Lord Draken!" The crowd parted for the vampiric king in question. "Subternia is under attack by Shadow Beasts! They're making their way here!"

"Oh dear!" Manny stated his hands on his cheeks as he feigned terror. "And here we are with the biggest collection of bad-asses in the light hemisphere!"

Indeed, many of the tribes and kingdoms ruled on a might makes right policy, and even if they didn't each individual guest brought with them their own contingent of royal guardsmen. As the throng of warriors of all shapes and sizes drew their weapons they felt the palace shake and it made them more than a little concerned when all the lights went out at once.

* * *

Below the Palace the force fields serving as cell doors went blank, releasing prisoners of varying shapes and sizes.

"Hello prisoners!" Beast Man emerged from the newly formed tunnel carved by gigantic black gorilla type monsters. "I am your parole officer here with a new work release program into the Evil Warriors. And the price of emission is one of the heads of the people above!"

* * *

Subternia and Eternia were connected together in many places, old abandoned wells, deep canyons, anywhere that the Dark Black beasts could climb up from below. A few were already in the palace by way of the wells and were now climbing the walls of the palace.

"Looks like trouble!" Ram Man stated backing away.

"Looks like Sport." Manny stated letting out a smirk.

"Stratos get down to Dani's lab and see if she can get her ecto-converter online." Nodding his head the Bird Winged Master jumped out the window and soared. "Apologies your Majesty, but we'll have to weaponize the wine cellar." Man At Arms stated as he opened the passage way in question.

Shadow Beast's got their name from the fact that they cannot stand bright light, the reasoning can be made that they also cannot stand being set on fire either. Until the power got back on line some substitutes had to be prepared, thus the wine was uncorked, the table clothes torn up and stuffed in the holes and set on fire using the torches being being tossed out the windows one by one. The sight of one of their compatriots being set on fire scared the Shadow Beasts enough that they stopped in their tracks, leaving them vulnerable to the counter strikes by Avions, Andreenans and Spleians. To Stratos's disappointment the Shadow Beasts were already swarming around Dani's laboratory, however the cries of pain were keeping them at bay a safe distance. It wasn't hard for Stratos to deduce the cause the windmill contraption on top of the laboratory was attached to a fire place billows which was pumping air through a ultrasonic whistle. For creatures who possess sensitive hearing it would be pure agony just to get close.

"Ingenious as always." Stratos landed in the entry way of the lab and peered inside spotting Daniela using her wing as a blanket to keep herself warm in the bed of hay. "Only you could sleep through a crisis such as this." Stratos shook Daniela awake, and she opened her eyes to the sound of monsters wailing in pain outside her door.

"What's the situation?"

* * *

In his own way Manny could be thought of as an innovator, the unique brand of insane troll logic that he operated on was occasionally brilliant, take the time that he made a brief attempt to replicate Daniela's mass duplication ability, that botched stillborn attempt instead spawned a new power, Asura mode, four extra arms and two extra heads, a minor reduction in power in exchange for three hundred degrees of coverage with his attacks. Course Manny wasn't as reckless to use a attack as powerful as the Ghostly Wail in the middle of the Royal capital, but his ecto beams were bright enough to blind away the Shadow Beasts.

"Keep those beams up Manny! Either drive them out or take them out!" Man At Arms shouted while he cooperated with a Leonian swordsmen to part a Shadow Beast of his head. "Not that I'm question you're wisdom here boss, but unless you think we can keep this up for weeks, and weeks, and weeks: we're gonna need what you call a plan B." Manny looked up to the sky and smirked at the cloud covering. "Yeah I can work with that." With a jump Manny took off into the air, extra bits sticking out of him and all, and positioned himself in the middle of the sky before letting out his 360 degree Ghostly wail to push away all the storm clouds, the Shadow Beasts fled in terror in response to the light.

"We need to get to the Atmosphere generator to keep the clouds from coming back, To the Vehicle Bay!" With Man At Arms in the lead, the hoard of loosely aligned Eternians advance.

* * *

**Author's Note**:

rmarcano321: Hence the reason why I blatantly ripped it off. For this story arc? How bout treat your subordinates with respect, especially when your up against someone with a vastly greater capacity for cruelty than you.

Zwe Eis: To be fair I probably should have thought of telling you about this sooner, thank you for saying so but don't feel bad for Skeletor, he doesn't deserve it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note**: So I'll just skip the part where I tell you all I got nothing to say and go on to writing next week's chapter already. In the mean time you can all Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 6: Eternia's Counter Offensive

The hairy form of Beast Man was positioned in front of the Atmosphere generator, his shadow beasts rumbling in the earth below and above having already torn apart the outpost which was stationed to guard this very machine. The sensitive hearing of Beast Man was something spectacular, he could already pick up that bloody wailing and off in the distance the storms were clearing up, not by the whim of the atmosphere generator but through the sheer brute force of someone else. A normal person would wonder who, Beast Man on the other hand knew and wish he didn't. Still at least he can't be in two places at once.

"So you're the so called 'Beast Man.'" The hairy man turned around and to his horror felt a familiar scent on his nose. A pair of birds is the first thought that came to his mind, one a Avion and the other a teenager with bird wings, still her scent was different enough that he could clearly tell that she was not the one who chased Skeletor all the way to Snake Mountain.

"Oh dear Hordak there's two of them!" The hairy creature started to back away in fear of the ghost girl.

"'Two of them?'" Daniela muttered suspiciously.

"Maybe he smells your brother on you." Stratos suggested helpfully.

"I smell like Manny?" Dani had a horrified look on her face. "Dear gods I need a shower."

"I am interested in learning what young Manny did to you to get a reaction like that..."

"I'm Not." Dani stated bluntly interrupting her fellow bird person in the process. "I know my brother."

"...point taken. But I'm far more interested in taking you into custody than hearing your life story."

"How about saving your Kingdom?" Beast Man let go of the trigger device in his hand at the same time that a griffon swooped down and snatched him up.

Stratos was about to give chase but stopped when the generator started to spark and was covered in the electricity of a overload. This wasn't a self destruct, but a overload, off in the distance multiple random natural disasters were spawning: tornadoes, blizzards, ozone holes, the very earth was starting to shake as the generator was turned against the whole of Eternia.

"Go get him I'll fix the machine!" Daniela snapped shooing Stratos away. Nodding his head Stratos flew off into the air chasing after the hairy brute on the back of a feathery one. "Oh I know I'm going to regret this." Daniela stated as she rendered her hands intangible.

She needed to drain some of the power off of that thing before she could fix it, to do that she needed a conductor and sadly she only had one. Thus Daniela took her intangible hands and shoved both of them into the generator, the pain was more than what Dani could ever imagine. Lightning was coming out of her eyes and mouth and she was sounding a high pitch scream loud enough to crack glass. Daniela endured the pain for as long as possible, her intangible hands undoing the botched shell program that was installed on the generator before the build up of electricity smacked her away. Dani's screaming did not go unnoticed to Stratos as he turned around to face her, still immortality and intangibility left him with very little to be legitimately concerned about as he resumed his chase of Beast Man.

"I swear, one of these days one of those two are going to end up hurting themselves." Stratos could only mutter as he continued the chase.

Beast Man looked behind him to see Stratos was still chasing after him, still this was his neck of the woods, or desert as it were, and Beast Man had a excessive amount of time to prepare for something a lot worst than one Avian.

"RRROOOAAAWWWRRR!" Letting out that call as they flew over the desert of time the earth shook as Sand Worms emerged from the ground to attack Stratos forcing him to break off pursuit as the giant worms sprouted all over the desert.

* * *

The Shadow Beasts had retreated away from the surface, but Daniela's hand cranked sirens was enough to chase them out of Subterania, while a combination of her ecto-converters and Manny's bathing slime was getting power back on line in the kingdom. Man At Arms was at a console trying to work while the ground was still shaking, it wasn't from the string of not so natural disasters that they had been hit with just now. The guilty culprit phased through the floor a satisfied look on his face.

"The monkey bears won't be coming back any time soon." Manny stated as he clapped his hands off side to side. "Anything happen while we were busy?"

"That is what I'm trying to figure out now." Man At Arms stated as he brought up the logs for incoming communications, now that the power was back online they could actually read them. "With any luck the majority of Skeletor's resources have been focused here and we won't have too many items to be concerned about." Suddenly the lights started flashing red, several communiques from Castle Greyskull flooded in all at once, S.O.S's from several of Eternia's allies were set off all at the same time and reports of outposts having been destroyed and prisons raided were coming in from all over. "... Oh crud."

* * *

Inside of Snake Mountain, jubilation's were in full swing. A huge stockpile had been assembled and piled before Skeletor's empty sockets, each magic artifact had the potential to level the magic wall that defended Eternia from full scale invasion, each of the resources had the potential to dramatically increase the power of him and his forces.

"Eternium." Trapjaw was quite happy to view the chunks of ore from the strongest metals the people of the world had ever known, as cyborg the concept of indestructible armor was quite pleasing to him.

"Dig in Trapjaw, I have big plans for you and your soon to be had invulnerability." Skeletor stated with a wave of his Ram Staff through the air.

"You mean it boss?" Trapjaw asked his tone of voice one of slight disbelief.

"You work for me, therefore your power is mine." Skeletor stated simply. "Not too much though, Tri-Clops has his eyes on that stuff as well."

Permissions receive Trapjaw greedily dug into his meal. His armor groaned as his unique digestive system processed the metal, old plating popped off of the cyborg's body and was soon replaced with the shining teal of Eternium. Letting out a burp Trapjaw and his new armor backed away from the still substantial pile allowing Tri-Clops to take the rest.

"Dibs on the Ambrosia!" Beast man reached over to the pile of honeycombed cakes intent on eating his full, but was stopped by a magical field by Skeletor.

"No I think not Beast Man, yes the Ambrosia will provide you with a... short boost in power, but it will ultimately turn on you in the end." Skeletor tapped his staff on the ground and the aura around the Ambrosia disappeared. "That said, for your efforts with the Shadow Beasts you will be rewarded." Suddenly one of the artifacts from the pile flew out and into Skeletor's hand, a magic amulet resembling the head of a Ram. "This is called the Ram Stone, a magic artifact that is designed to pierce through magical barriers, with it there will be no form of creature safe from your control." With a toss the Ram Stone flew into Beast Man's hand.

"Treat that Amulet well Beast, it was not easy to acquire." Evil-lyn stated in a blunt tone of voice.

"And you did well to retrieve it, despite your concerns so a reward is demanded." A second artifact flew out of the pile, a red amulet with sinister looking designs drawn on it. "You're familiar with the stories of count Marzlo yes?" Saying that Skeletor tossed over the amulet that Evil-lyn promptly caught. "Adequate compensation?"

"Adequate." Evil-lyn replied as she put the amulet on.

"Onto business then, Whip Lash and Clawful should have been successful in bringing in the two individuals I sent to retrieve, we should already have adequate bribes prepared for them." With a wave of his staff Skeletor isolated the honey comb cakes and the massive green jewel from the rest of the pile into two separate energy fields. "The rest will be transported to Tri-Clop's lab, where he will use them in combination with the Eternium to build weapons of war to bring low Eternia."

""""HURRAH! HURRAH!"""" The Evil Warriors all cheered in response to this new information.

* * *

The Master's had all been gathered outside of Man At Arms workshop, the man in question with some dire news.

"While we were busy fending off the attack on the palace, Skeletor and his minions were doing quite a bit of shopping." The highlights from the list included the ambrosia that acted as a steroid for the Andreenids, the Eternian metal that was pivotal to the life style of the Katakan's, the emerald of Veridas, and magical artifacts with the words 'of evaporation,' 'incineration,' 'destruction' appearing in their names a lot. These items were kept locked up tight, deemed too dangerous to use and too powerful to destroy without inducing mass destruction by the various different tribes of Eternia. "Skeletor played us like a fiddle, while all of the important people in Eternia were gathered in one place he released those Shadow Beasts to keep us busy while his Evil Warriors robbed us blind."

"The matters of greatest concern to me are the places that we don't know that he's been." Daniela stated as she crossed her arms. "Someone who planned this matter out this well is going to spend a great deal of time learning everything that they can about their quarry. The Emerald of Veridas is only good for growing giant plants, and the Ambrosia of the Andreenids is only good for insectoid species." Skeletor has been gone for over half a decade, they can't assume that he has been doing nothing during all this time.

"It seems that we have no choice: Skeletor has obtained a unimaginable amount of power and it's continued existence is simply unacceptable!" Man At Arms stood at attention and everyone present followed suit. "Daniela, you will take the members of the royal family to Castle Greyskull where you will guard them with your life."

"I will use my portable laboratory as transport. Ignoring the dangers of leaving it unattended it will add considerable power to the defense of the castle." Daniela stated making little room for compromise.

"Agreed." And Man At Arms stated having no visible reason to doubt Dani's logic. Thus Daniela phased through the wall, taking Prince Adam with her who protested to leaving the meeting, to little success. "Manny I need you to lead the Masters through the Dark Hemisphere to Snake Mountain. How much of the terrain do you remember from last time?"

"Eh. I triggered most of the traps last time so I think I remember where they are." Manny stated shrugging his shoulders, invoking the opposite of the feeling of confidence in the masters.

"Right. Get your equipment together, we leave for Snake Mountain immediately!"

* * *

While the Master's prepared The Royal Family was led inside of Castle Greyskull. It was a ancient mass of ruins built for Eternia's first King Greyskull, and the only one to inhabit it since then has been the line of Sorceresses who serve as it's guardian. The building wore it's name on it's sleeve, a massive Grey castle with it's front wall the shape of a giant fanged skull, the entire thing surrounded by a massive deep pit the depth of which was not known even to the Sorceress. Still Daniela and the current Sorceress were formidable fighters in of themselves, this place was effectively the hardest point in Eternia, and almost no one knew about it.

"That Bone Faced Psychopath means to take the world and we're just going to hide in these ruins and let him!?" Adam snapped in a accusatory tone as Daniela led them through the castle.

"As I have repeatedly informed you Adam, Greyskull is far more than just ruins." Daniela stated as the group descended below the castle, stone started to give way to rigid crystal.

"You brought us here when Skeletor makes his full scale invasion of Eternia, so either Greyskull is hiding a bunker, or a weapon of mass destruction." King Randor asked his suspicion worn on his face. "Which one is it?"

"A weapon, one of great power but not the kind that you think." Daniela led the group to the sorceress, her tutor in the school of magic. It was obvious from whom Daniela got her sense of fashion from, a bird themed headdress and large eagle like wings on her back.

"Before you King Randor there was the Council of Elders, before there was the Council there was King Greyskull a man of incredible power who was able to defeat the Forces of Evil almost single handily." The Sorceress explained bluntly.

"One person?" The Queen was somewhat skeptical of this story.

"He had two things going for him, the first is that his enemies were extremely prone to infighting, all he needed to do was defend his lands from people who were far more interested in fighting each other than him." Ah yes. There can only be one ruler of the world, ultimately eliminates the option of forming a alliance. "The second was a blood transfusion from a giant." As the Sorceress said that she passed by a stone tablet with a mural carved into it, of a man who was even more monstrously ripped than Manny was, and that saying something.

"So what? We're part giant or something?" Adam asked paying the briefest of glances at the mural.

"Steroids aren't passed down the bloodline your majesty." Daniela stated as they arrived at one of the central pillars. "But blood is. Which leads us to this." Daniela and the sorceress led the royal family to a sanctuary inside of one of the pillars, where what resembled a large metal great sword lodged inside of a great solid rock resided. "Greyskull ultimately sacrificed his life clashing against the Dark Sorcerer Hordak, with his last breath however he cast his power into his most trusted advisers, people that you would come to know as the council of elders, they're descendants the leaders of the tribes of Eternia."

"But the council is gone now. Where's Greyskull's power now?" The Queen, Marlena, asked though she suspected she knew the answer.

"That is Greyskull's sword." Daniela stated pointing to the blade. Adam noted Daniela's use of present tense, not was, not use to be, _IS_! As if the man who ruled and conquered Eternia single handily countless years ago still sat upon the throne and this castle wasn't a mass of ruins in the center of a bottomless crater. "Throughout the Elder's long lives they continuously grew the power they received from the king, with instructions that when they felt the coming of darkness they were to prepare one of his descendants to receive his power." Daniela stated turning around to look at the Royal family.

"Me?" Randor asked looking shocked. "If we were having this conversation twenty years ago, yes." Daniela asked leaning against a wall. "But your heart is not strong enough, draw the sword if you wish." Daniela stated gesturing to the blade. "You won't leave here with it."

Queen Marlena grabbed hold of her husband's right shoulder and squeezed, the pressure point within and the cut off of circulation therein dropping the king to his knees before he lost consciousness.

"Will Adam be alright to wield the King's power and fight Skeletor?" Marlena asked suspicious of the two women who served as their guides.

"Adam is young enough to adapt to the power, about the same age that Greyskull himself was when he receive the giant's blood transfusion. As for Skeletor..." Daniela walked over to the mural depicting the king. "Doesn't have a lot of armor on him does he?" Daniela asked gesturing to the severe lack of armor that covered the King's body. "He didn't need it. As a consequence of giant's blood in his veins the King was left invulnerable to harm. Skeletor could fire off any one of the weapons of mass destruction he stole at point blank range and not even leave behind a scratch." The Queen turned around and looked Adam in his eyes, nodding her head and silently giving her consent. Adam walked over to the stone, and picked up the sword...

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: I thought so. Keep in mind that Hawk Man has the countless number of skills he's built up by being repeatedly reincarnated into a thousand different lives. They were in the 2003 series. I do admit that the name He Man lacks pizzazz but I've never seen She-Ra in action.

Zwei Eis: I thought it might be funny.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note**:Not much to say right now, Going to go watch anime. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 7: A Guide to Besieging Snake Mountain

Tri-clops was completing work on Trap-Jaw's mechanical arm, directly integrating one of the artifacts of destruction that they had stolen into it.

"Is it done yet?" Trap-Jaw asked impatiently.

"Can't rush perfection." Tri-Clops replied smugly under the light of his welder.

"No but I can rush you." Trap-Jaw stated impatiently tapping organic fingers.

Tri-Clops already finished integrating one of the artifacts into his head piece, pieces of a mirror of omniscient viewing dramatically augmenting his vision and surveillance capabilities.

"There finished." Tri-Clops backed away from his newly completed creation, it's recipient smiling toothily down at the weapon. "I've included a high frequency vibrator into your claw to augment it's cutting power, and with the Orb of Vaporization it will instantly and completely destroy anything you fire it at."

"Wait, wait, wait." The two individuals had a surprise look on their faces as they turned around to a hugely muscular young man with a tini-tiny notebook and pencil in his hands.

"How do you spell 'Vaporization?'" The two utterly stunned individuals reacted quickly.

"This is how!" Trap Jaw transformed his newly upgraded arm into a cannon and fired off his weapon, or at least tried to. The arm groaned as it failed to transform looking down at the end of his arm Trap Jaw saw a screw driver jammed into the place where his claw was suppose to retract into the arm. "What the!?" Tri-Clops ignored Trap-Jaw's plight and fired his ocular beam at Manny, who deflected the beam with a ecto shield to instead hit Trap Jaw.

"Know what? Think I'll just wing it." With a flick of his finger Manny floored Tri-Clops all the away across the room.

"Screw You!" Trap-Jaw got up quickly, Eternium armor had taken the brunt of the attack without so much as a scratch and it in the ease by which Trap-Jaw ripped out the jamming screw driver and chucked it aside. "I'M INDESTRUCTIBLE!" Raising up and leveling his arm cannon Trap Jaw switched his arm to gun mode and prepared to fire the bouquet of flowers that came out of his arm. "Wait what!?"

"'Orb of Vaporization.'" Trap-Jaw looked over to Manny who had the gun from his weapon dismantled and was now examining the key component that had been removed and was now writing something down. "V a p..."

"QUIT SCREWING AROUND!" Trap Jaw rushed over to Manny and attempted to plunge his claw in him only for it, and his entire body, to go straight through Manny without leaving a trace. "What the...?"

"... i o n! Okay I'm done now!" Manny shoved the orb into his back pack and turned around to confront Trap Jaw.

"Who the heck are you!?" Trap Jaw asked looking surprised with this new force he's never seen before.

"_**Big brothers shouldn't bully or degrade,**_

_**be sugar sweet,**_

_**not lemonade!**_"

"GYAH!" Trap Jaw would recognize that song from anywhere, having heard it over and over again for days on end at the cost of a great deal of sleep. Trap Jaw ran over to the console where Tri-Clops had installed his computer and contacted Skeletor who was in his throne room of the mouth of Snake Mountain. "Boss it's him!" However Trap-Jaw received no response, looking around the computer he saw that someone had disconnected the power line with an ax. "Wh-Wh-What are you?" Manny was quite clever contrary to Daniela's insistence, he appeared in the exact time to stun both Trap Jaw and Tri-Clops long enough for a invisible clone arm to sneak over and snatch off a chunk of the cyborg's arm and replace it with those flowers he took from the royal garden. "Oh, Just a Idiot."

"S-S-Stay Back! I'm indestructible!" Trap-Jaw ejected the flowers and replaced them with his claw appendage.

"Then how did I remove your gun?" Manny smiled sinisterly and terrified Trap Jaw to his core.

"GGGYYYAAAHHH!" Trap Jaw barely had the presence of mind to grab Tri-Clops before he ran out of the work shop screaming.

"Well that's settled." Manny pulled out the communication device from his pocket and contacted the rest of the Masters.

"I found a Orb of..." Manny looked down and checked his notes. "...Vaporion. What should I do with it? Gotcha!" Manny took the bit of Eternium scrap metal, raised it above his head, and promptly smashed it down on top of the orb with enough force to shatter it. The explosion rocked all of snake mountain, something you'd think the Evil Warriors would be use to considering they live inside of a volcano, but this one concerned them greatly.

* * *

"Skeletor!" Trap Jaw ran in carrying Tri-Clops with his arm slung over his neck. "He's Back!"

"I know, I heard him singing from all the way up here." Even Skeletor had to shiver at the memory of the trauma that child induced on them. "But it is irrelevant, for we have an artifact that not even an immortal can survive." Skeletor stated holding a jar with the heart of a monster inside of it. "But until our little problem is dealt with most of our projects must be put on hold."

"Most? But not all?" Evil-Lyn grew suspicious with that choice of phrase.

"Correct my dear." Skeletor stood up to stand by his allies. "I made deals with two individuals whom I concluded would be able to muster the fire power to bring low the Master's, provided that they receive the proper stimulus that is." On that note Skeletor produced a large green viewing portal with his staff.

Manny had definitely grown since they last saw him, quickly concluding that whatever species he was must have matured at an accelerated rate compared to humans. Hopefully that meant the childishness that made him so fearsome had faded, though of more immediate note was the fact that he was leading the Masters inside of Snake Mountain.

"The Masters!" Beast man snapped growling angrily.

"Patience Beast Man. You will go to the twisted caverns, where you will put the Ram Stone to use to recruit the locals to our cause." Skeletor stated prompting a pleased expression from the hairy minion. "Now." Beast Man ran off to his flying creatures, they would serve to close the incoming gap quite nicely. "Mer-Man, Clawful you will take the cordinite and secure our dominion on a oceanic front." Mer-Man beat his chest with his fist before he left with the oversize lobster man. "Evil-lyn, I leave Whiplash, Trap-Jaw and Tri-clops to you. When I return I will bring our new allies and their considerable fire power here to relieve the burden on you and our forces."

"Trap Jaw and Tri-Clops are in no condition to fight. We will require the use of the Skeleton warriors, if only to delay until these two on are in the condition where they can fight again." To Evil-Lyn's suggestion Trap-Jaw let out a relieved sigh.

"Very well." Skeletor stated waving the group of minions off as went to the docking yard where a fully loaded cargo ship equipped with gifts for Skeletor's soon to be acquired allies could be found. Now that Skeletor saw that all of the Masters were inside of his base he could freely fly out of it without fearing the possibility that they would shoot it down. Meanwhile Evil-Lyn was putting their defensive measures to good use.

* * *

"My heat censors cannot pick any thing out of this sweltering volcano." The robotic face of Man-E-Faces stated his eyes scanning the environment and coming up with so much data that they were on the verge of burning out.

"And your nose?" To Man At Arms question the cursed cyborg quickly cycled to a much greener and scarier face which then started to sniff about the corridor in search of clues.

"Grr... This place smells like sulfur and death." In substitute for plugging his nose the multifaced monster returned to his robotic form.

"Hang on, I'll scout ahead." Meckaneck extended his head out via overly long neck contraption, which both it and the head it was attached to conveniently turned invisible. Convenient mind you because there was a skeletal warrior covered in slime that was rapidly approaching them from down the hallway. "One of Skeletor's home brewed monsters." A speaker implanted in the cyborg's chest stated.

"Only one?" Teela asked cocking a confused brow.

"Must be a patrol, if we don't have to fight it then we shouldn't." Man At Arms stated as he fired a grapple cable into the ceiling.

These things were mindless ghouls, likely set to patrol the halls in a pre-programmed route, when one does not show up at it's check point then it's a sign for the rest to go and investigate the area. Thus using a combination of vastly enhanced cybernetics and grapple points the Master's climbed to the ceiling of the hallway, less the slimy skeleton bump into a bunch of invisible intruders. Thus without missing a beat the skeleton walked up to where they were standing, looked straight up to the ceiling, and fired a energy beam directly out of it's fore head at them.

"Not a Patrol!" Ram Man used his considerable bulk to block the energy beam and subsequently landed directly on top of the skeleton with a crushing blow. The other Master's dropped back down as they looked at the puddle of slime and crushed bone below their comrade's bulk.

"Why would Skeletor only send one skeleton warrior to confront us?" Man At Arms asked as he helped his subordinate to his feet. Suddenly the slime started to rise back up, but rather than one lump it formed two, bone reforming inside of each and thus producing two slime skeleton warriors. "Oh..."

"Well that's interesting." Manny interrupted the slimy bone heads mid-attack by grabbing hold of both of them from behind and rendered them both intangible. "But we're on a time table." Saying that Manny made both slime skeletons intangible before sinking them deep into the ground below. "Shall we?" Manny asked as he gestured down the hallway.

* * *

Back in the throne Room Evil-Lyn was watching the 'battle' between the Halfa and the skeletons unfold in a blink and you'll miss it moment via magic window. Tri-Clops walked up scratching his head, still sore from when Manny clocked him on his head just in time to witness his spectacular failure.

"For something that you've been working on for the better part of a decade your pet project has ended in a spectacular failure." Evil-Lyn commented in a scathing tone of voice.

"It does look like that doesn't it? But looks can be deceiving." Tri-Clops went to work on weaponizing the other artifacts, completely dismissing the matter on the magic window.

Below Snake Mountain the two Skeleton Slimes were literally bursting at the seams inside of the lava and regrowing adding to the mass of clones, not unlike a certain immortal who visited the mountain several years ago.

* * *

Through the Jungles of Eternia a path was being cut through to the various tribes of Eternia like a giant continent wide connect the dots. The fact of the matter was that the tribes were reeling, in the past twenty four hours each tribe had been struck hard and fast by guerrilla attacks by one of Skeletor's minions. The Royal Family, surrounded by their elite guard who were in turn led by what could best be summarized as a monstrously ripped barbarian riding atop a heavily armored tiger and accompanied by what appeared to be an angelic sorcerer. With each village they visited they saw more of the same, monstrous slime covered skeleton warriors in seemingly infinite numbers, the animals and the plants having gone wild and turned against the villages. In short, they were each a scene of carnage the likes of which this world had never seen before.

"Plants and animals. Is this Beast man's work?" Said monstrously ripped man asked scratching his chin. "He's never been able to manipulate creatures on this scale before."

"Adam, there's a saying where we come from for situations like this: first time for everything." Daniela stated sat on the edge of a fence and holding a conversation with her muscular companion.

How did this spectacular transformation occur? Simple. Adam drew the sword from the stone and in a flash of electricity he had taken this form. While not nearly as muscular as the roided out Greyskull or the slime bathing Manny Adam was quite muscular, he did however have the King's harness and furry kilt, both much like the king did in the past daring his enemies to strike at 'vulnerable' flesh. It was almost as if Adam and this new warrior were completely different people, were it not for the fact that the prince's head was stuck onto the neck of said monstrously ripped barbarian.

"So you think that Beast Man can control plants now like he does animals?" Adam asked looking surprised.

"That is not remotely what I said. To control animals Beast Man relies on a weak psychic field and extensive domestication and training of his beasts, taking control outright of wild monsters indicates that his power has grown, or that he like you has acquired a artifact capable of doing what he could not. Plants on the other hand is something completely unrelated to him, though unfortunately not from the artifacts Skeletor's forces stole." Daniela stated crossing her arms.

"The stone of Veridas!" Adam snapped cluing in.

"In a manner of speaking yes but that's only half of the equation." Daniela stated holding her chin. "The stone acts as super fertilizer dramatically accelerating the growth of plants, and while that can be used on dangerous plants that doesn't explain why previously harmless plants have suddenly turned hostile." Daniela crossed her arms while she pondered the implications of what was happening. "Skeletor may have a new ally."

Beast man watched the royal retinue from afar, hidden out of sight of course, his advance hearing giving him some idea of what was going on. This was the first time he saw the so-called He-Man, admittedly he didn't look too intimidating not even bothering to wear armor, at least Beast Man had his hair to protect him. Still if this was the best that Eternia had to offer then Skeletor's conquest of the planet was guaranteed by this point in time.

"That would be Eternia's new protector." Beast Man growled as a mass of vines grew out of the ground, climbed up the tree, and assumed a humanoid form.

"He will make wonderful fertilizer!" The plant stated before dropping to the ground and performing a swan dive through the dirt making a beeline directly for the village.

"What about you? You mentioned that you got a new power recently." Adam asked looking at Daniela suspiciously.

"Yes. I recently received a new power, do to my existing power being altered by an outside force." Daniela stated with a roll of her eyes. "And while it is possible that something has happened to Beast Man to give him new power, I doubt it. I saw him during the attack on the palace, there was nothing on him to indicate that he gained the ability to control over plants, though we should also account for the possibility that it could be an animal with the ability to control plants." Daniela looked over to the side of the village and her eyes dropped into a dead pan stare. "Though seeing that I kind of doubt it severely." Confused Adam turned around, and bore witness to the return of the killer plants as a vaguely lamia like figure made out of chartreuse colored plants rose up from the ground and surveyed the village, locking eyes with his prey.

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Again the 03 Series, Hordak was the one responsible for Skeletor's transformation, and he was the big bad of the Dark Continent before Skeletor as well. He was essentially to Grey Skull what Skeletor is to He-Man. But again I wouldn't know since I never saw her in action. Why not, they're small enough that you can catch them in the same frame as your hero, provides a convenient power up in a fantasy setting and looks cool when you swing it around. Yes. I'm not sure, I'm going to try to avoid dragging it on though.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note**: Alrighty then! With any luck I'll get all my writing done over the long weekend, so with this in mind Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 8: First Blood

Beast Man was not nearly as much of a show boater as this Evil-Seed. Whereas the chloro-kinetic's power set required that he be up close and personal, not to mention that the plant enjoyed large overly hammy routines, Beast Man controlled creatures that could very much act independent of him, and had already learned his lesson about the perils of picking fights with those he did not know. No this plant would soon learn his lesson, or the second ghost person would soon beat it into him in humiliating fashion. Either way he needed to take preparations.

"State your name and purpose weed!" Adam stated leveling his blade at the head of the evil plant creature.

"I am Evil-Seed!" The plant creature snapped as he loomed over the villages with his long vine like body. "And I have come to purge these lands of the flesh bag parasites that have..." Evil-Seed then proceeded to enter a rant about why and how he was going to make the reincarnation of Grey Skull and the people under him suffer. Adam had the people of the village back away from the rampaging plants with his sword waiting for Daniela to put her plan into motion. "...tremble under my..." Then the plant noticed something cold land on his head. Looking up Evil Seed saw that a cloud cover had moved in blocking out all the light and snow was falling down. "Snow? In the summer! What manner of Sorcery is this!?"

"Plants require sunlight yes?" Daniela asked as she appeared next to the plant monster who in turn backed away and readied himself to strike her. "Doubly so for one who can move around and talk like yourself." Suddenly a light glass like film appeared over Evil Seed's body as he gradually stiffened like a statue. "Course there's also all the extra water in your body, if I had to guess I'd say about... 95%?" Evil Seed went from a mobile plant to a immobile statue in about five seconds, course Daniela wasn't just attacking from above, one of her clones was in the ground poring freezing cold temperatures into his roots freezing him from the inside out and giving him severe frost bite in the process. "You know what? Why don't you think about it for a while." With a wave of her staff Daniela dropped the frozen bag of peas of a man into a portal, and spat him out into one of the glaciers of the far north. Between the freezing cold temperatures and the massive amount of salt water that surrounded the glacier Evil-seed should be effectively quarantined.

"That's what we get for betting on a amateur." Looking up Daniela saw the familiar form of large, crimson colored scales and dark black horns in the shape of dragons, an entire horde of them, and riding atop the alpha at the front of the pack was Beast Man's hairy form with the Ram Stone medallion hanging from his neck. "But I have not mistaken you for your brother girl, your cheap tricks do not-GAH!" Adam interrupted Beast Man's rant with a rock chucked at his head, which in turn caused him to fall off the scaly creature.

"Beast Man normally can't control dragons." Adam stated as he picked up the hairy monster man by the scruff of his neck. "They emit a field that neutralizes the magic he relies upon to do so. You explained that to me."

"Very good you remembered." Daniela plucked the green amulet from Beast Man's neck. "But the Ramstone is a artifact that bypasses magical barriers, with it he would be able to control them, without on the other hand..." Adam threw Beast man who was about to regain consciousness to the ground.

"UGH!" The Alpha of the dragons landed behind Adam and Daniela, not that she noticed that as she loomed over the both of them and glared angrily at Beast Man. "Obey your...!" Beast Man padded around his chest and in a moment summarized as 'oh damn' realized that he didn't have the amulet anymore. The dragon responded to that by slamming down her claws on top of Beast Man trapping him in a makeshift cage of sharp claws and scaly fingers as she let out a low unamused growl in the hairy Evil Warrior's direction.

"As amusing as the idea of letting your pet show you how much she appreciates your affection is I think it's best that we excise her and her pack from this area as soon as possible." On that note, Daniela produced a green glowing ball of ecto in her hand and threw it into the air. The ecto ball caught their eyes as it rapidly circled round their heads in a ring of light before flying off into the woods with the Dragon's quick to follow.

Adam caught the Beast Man who was about to flee again and dropped him into a portal produced by Daniela, unlike Evil-Seed Beast Man was delivered directly to the Eternian prison which had been rebuilt and magically reinforced since it was trashed by Beast Man and his associates.

"We march on the mystic mountains, where hopefully the Andreenids and the Avion's are fairing better then the communes we have already visited." King Randor stated causing both his transformed son and the Sorceress's apprentice to nod their heads.

* * *

To answer the King's question, no the humanoid bee people and humans with mechanical wings were not fairing better at all. The entire Mystic mountains had been covered in Spider webbing it's people either wrapped in Cocoon's or forced to work. What kind of work you may wonder? The Andreenid's had the unique ability to manufacture a substance called Ambrosia, for insectoid, arachnid basically anything with a exoskeleton it acted as a steroid dramatically augmenting muscle and exoskeleton tissues massively increasing strength and durability in the process.

"With the Andreenid's under your thumb you can expect a limitless supply of Ambrosia." Skeletor stated sat on the throne of the Andreenid Queen. "And with the alliance with Evil Seed you can expect to have Ambrosia production increased by well... ludicrous levels." Webstor was of the arachnoid race, spider people with the ability to reproduce asexually, and while they could produced one or two offspring at a time under normal circumstances with the Ambrosia augmenting every organ in their body thousand of their eggs had been laid and hatched. And Skeletor was quite intent on making sure that the Arachnid remembered who brokered that alliance and who handed over the Andreenid's on a silver platter.

"Yes... I understand the value of an alliance now. With Evil Seed's and the Veridas stone's powers combined he will spread his progeny over all of Eternia, and with the Ambrosia mine will as well." Of course, that now raised the question of what Skeletor brought to this alliance. Thanks to the Ambrosia Webstor had grown into a towering monstrosity twice the size of the skull faced leader of the Evil Warriors standing on eight long bladed spider legs, two of which served in place of arms.

"Of course while the two of you rule the light hemisphere the Dark Hemisphere which is of little use to you will remain mine. I trust that we can maintain the... mutually beneficial partnership we have enjoyed up until now?" Skeletor had undergone a minor cosmetic change, having implanted Cordonite crystals in his eye sockets, enough to give him a massive boost to his fighting power.

"You did all of this thinking that you would gain nothing from it?" Webstor asked suspicious. "I find that hard to believe."

"Oh I have gained much over the past several days, with more to come. I offer a simple choice and the time to ponder it: we maintain our alliance of mutual benefit, or sever it on amicable terms with the mutual understanding that we will both be left to our own devices." Skeletor stated as he tapped his staff on the ground and produced a magic window over seeing the view of the Eternian jungles from the point of view of the mystic mountains: where a massive hoard of the tribes of Eternia were assembling to dump their collective capacity for violence on top of the heads of the spiders and the gooey skeleton's that Skeletor had brought with him. "Shall I show what other benefits this alliance might bring?"

* * *

Snake mountain was positively frothing at the mouth, literally. As a result of constantly growing and regenerating bones being dumped into it's lavaways the end result being that the veins of the serpent were now literally bursting at the seams, which was rather unfortunate for those who meant to infiltrate this place. Manny was not as skilled when it came to intangibility as his sister was, he unlike her cannot simply grab hold of all of the Masters and safely guide them through the mountain so here they were, blasting, smashing, slicing and dicing their way through the hoard to the amusement of the Evil Warriors.

"Hey how did you give those things the ability to grow in number like that anyway?" Trap Jaw asked as Tri-Clops continued work on installing a new hyper destructive artifact into his mechanical arm.

"I isolated the mass of genetic material that brat left behind when he was here and spliced that into the genome of one of our Skeleton soldiers, I discovered that when the bones are broken they convert some kind of entropic energy into a form of..." And Tri-Clops realized that he already lost his colleague on a mental level prompting a face slap. "If you knew you wouldn't understand then why did you ask?" Rolling her eyes Evil-lyn decided to answer a call on her scepter from Skeletor resulting in a magic window depicting their skull faced leader.

"How are the Master's of the Universe fairing?" Skeletor asked lounging in the chair he took from the Andreenid queen.

"Tri-clops took the liberty of flooding the mountain with what I am quickly realizing are mass produced skeletal clones of the child." Evil-lyn stated letting out a small tone of legit impress leak through. "The enemy should soon be overwhelmed but I do have a request. The child is here, having your secret weapon to deal with him would be helpful."

"Hmm." Skeletor pondered the question briefly. "Very well. However it seems that Evil Seed has been defeated, so I would like some assistance sent over to interrogate the King's royal guard to find out what they did with him. Fortunately they are on their way to my location to answer my questions."

"Alright." Evil-Lyn nodded her head as she turned to the Evil Warriors. "Tri-clops I don't know how to control these things. Everyone else can go."

"Sweet!" Trap-Jaw pulled his arm free of Tri-Clops as he admired it. "I got a chance try out my new toy!"

With that said and done Evil-lyn opened a new portal and the members of the Evil Warriors flooded through leaving behind herself and the three eyed cyborg. Skeletor in turn chucked over his secret weapon, the Monster heart and it's immortal slaying power. "Now I don't suppose you mind telling me how this thing actually works?" Evil-lyn asked holding the jar in question up to eye level.

"Now where's the fun in that?" Saying that Skeletor turned off the window leaving Evil-lyn and Tri-clops alone with a hoard of skeletons.

* * *

Down below in the bowels of the mountain the Master's and Manny were tearing through the hoards of bony warriors. When they started to figure out that attacking them was only making things worst they instead tried to corral them, collapsing chunks of the tunnels in order to block off the skeletal horde.

"Where have you people been?" The familiar voice of Daniela echoed through Man At Arms skull.

"We've been a bit busy lately." Man At Arms stated as he deflected another energy blast with his shield.

"I bet you are. Put my idiot on the com." Daniela's voice dripped with snark and disrespect, it must be bad over there.

"Daniela whatever it is over there this is worst!" Man At Arms snapped as he repeatedly slammed his weapon down on top of the head of the nearest skeleton.

"Less than thirty seconds with my brother and you'll be in paradise." Daniela snapped, and growing tired of her voice Man At Arms pulled his coms out of his ear.

"Meckaneck, she wants to talk to her brother." The cyborg with the snake like neck wrapped his shtick around the heads of several of the skeletons and turned their heads around backwards on his way over to his captain, took the ear piece from his finger tips, before snaking over to Manny all with out moving from where he was standing.

"Manny at a peak of curiosity did you leave any chunks of yourself lying around the last time you were there?" Daniela asked in a suspicious tone of voice.

"A snake tried to eat me and dissolve me in his stomach acid does that count?" Manny for his part looked like the skeletons did not concern him one bit, what with the way that they fruitlessly attempted to chew on steel like muscles as he hurled them around and smashed them simply by spinning around on the spot.

"Ah that explains that." A sound like someone slapping themselves in their face echoed on the other side of the coms, Daniela likely reached the limit of her patience for the day. "Manny, do you remember that time you tried to learn self duplication and you wound up with your body stuck as some eldritch abomination for an hour before you figured out how to turn yourself back?"

"Aha?"

"Do that."

"El-whatever Abom-whozit?"

"No." A second face smack emerged on Daniela's end of the conversation. "The Reverse."

"Alright, don't see how that will help." Shrugging his shoulders, Manny produced his extra arms, punched out several skeleton's at once before retracting them. "Well that was fun but what now? We're still up to our arm pits in skeletons." Even Manny could see that the constant fighting was taking it's toll on his allies.

"No, absorb them like you did your vestigial clones." Daniela sounded a hair's breath away from snapping into one of her infamous psychotic tirades at Manny.

"Huh?" Manny could only reply in confusion.

"I DON'T HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN THREE YEARS WORTH OF ECTO METAPHYSICS AND INTERDIMENSIONAL BIOLOGY TO YOU, YOU MISERABLE INSUFFERABLE MEAT WITTED IDIOT!" She still had time to yell at him though, Manny learned a long time ago that Daniela always had time for that. "SPREAD YOURSELF OUT AS FAR AS POSSIBLE! GRAB HOLD OF AS MANY SKELETONS AS POSSIBLE. THEN YANK THEM ALL INTO YOURSELF!"

"Yeash no need to yell."

And so Manny did that, spitting out his greatest attempt at multiplication yet he by far exceeded all expectations as he produced massive tentacles of flesh in the form of random body parts such as hands, arms, heads, eyes, feet, tongue, mouth and others all across the hallway. Then these mishappened horrors grabbed hold of as many skeletons as possible and dragged them all towards Manny absorbing/crushing them all into his body. Even the supposedly mindless skeletons recognized the horror of this situation and were either gobbed smacked or chose to retreat. The attempt bought precious time for the Master's prompting Man At Arms to take his coms back from Manny, and smack his face back to normal, before adjusting the coms so that everyone could hear what the sorceress's apprentice was saying.

"Those bone heads you're all fighting are Manny's clones, they were made from his DNA and that's how they were able to spawn infinitely, but they are unstable so the idiot can simply reabsorb them."

"I don't get it." On that Note Manny interrupted himself with a burp that blew chunks of metal out of his mouth causing Man-E-Faces to duck to avoid the projectile vomit. "They're not me so how can I absorb them?"

Dani smacked herself again.

"We don't have time for how or why we just need you to do it again." Man At Arms stated, that much Manny understood. "Before you do that though, we've got wounded so we need you to create a exit out of this place."

"Can do." Manny moved Man At Arms aside as he took a deep breath. "WWWHHHOOOAAAHHH!"

The Ghostly Wail left a hole in the side of snake mountain big enough to fly a jet through. Which point of interest is what Man At Arms did, accessing the control panel on his arm he remotely commanded his team's drop ship that they had parked several miles away to fly up to the hole and the Masters piled in.

"Manny..."

"I know. Out..." Once more mis-happened tentacles of flesh speared the skeletons, some even went intangible and into the floor to suck up skeletons that were trying to break through from under the lava, before they were all sucked up inside. "In. Out..."

Like that the massacre continued as the Skeleton's numbers dropped as fast as they had previously risen all to the mounting horror of Tri-clops and the lack of surprise from Evil-lyn.

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: True. Most dangerous? Each of Skeletor's minions are either sociopaths or psychopaths with the capacity to maim murder or kill anyway who gets in their way or has something that they want. Most useful on the other hand, that would be a tie between Evil-lyn, Tri-clops and Beast Man of the current generation that is: Evil-lyn is Skeletor's chief enforcer and most reliable minion, Tri-Clops is his gadget man responsible for building and maintaining all of the technology that he and his forces use, while Beast Man is the one who controls the vast hoard of monsters that Skeletor is so fond of feeding people he doesn't like to.

Zwei Eis: Good to hear from you again. Get better soon and thank you for saying so. If you're confused about anything I can try to Clarify it in a PM.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note**: Not much to say right now, little bit behind on Where I'd like to be so I'm going to go try to remedy that now.

* * *

Chapter 9: The Mystic Mountains

Tri-clops finished packing up all of the artifacts for transport. What else was there for him to do? The legions of skeleton soldiers he had gone through the trouble of mass producing had all been wiped out just like that, while the Master's may have still been recovering the child would soon be up here to wreak his usual brand of havoc. Evil-lyn on the other hand was busy reporting the situation to Skeletor.

"I see." Skeletor stated scratching his chin. "Given how much trouble they have given the Masters it is a shame to loose the upgraded skeletal warriors."

"If I may Skeletor, after your weapon has eliminated the immortal can we simply not make use of his corpse?" Evil-lyn asked still not entirely sure about the mechanics behind this immortal slayer worked.

"I'm afraid not my dear. When I said we would be ending him I meant that we would end all of him: there won't be a corpse left to use." Skeletor stated making his desire for this very clear. The truth of the matter was that if not for Tri-Clop's insistence on keeping the matter that the snake expelled after trying to eat Manny then Skeletor would have long ago disposed of that stuff. "In the mean time if you do not believe you can implement our weapon on the child and fight the Master's at the same time then I suggest a strategic withdraw." Evil-lyn had already checked on Manny via magic window, he had already finished absorbing the skeletal warriors but he ran into a new problem, the cybernetics from the skeletal warriors had been caught in his digestive track and he was now working to... expel them.

"Where to if I might be so bold to ask?" Evil-lyn stated reminding her employer that this was their headquarters that she was in, as in the place in which one retreats to.

"Currently the mystic mountains is firmly within the grasp of our allies, you may join me over here, once our artifacts have been secured that is." Skeletor stated putting the emphasis on protecting the items they spent so much time and resources on securing in the name of conquest.

"At once!" Speaking of which, Tri-Clops looked like he finished packing the last of the artifacts while Evil-lyn was still talking, so the witch woman simply fired her magic at it and encased everything into a large floating purple barrier. "Come Tri-Clops..." Evil-lyn opened the portal and put the artifacts through. "You must continue your work on the other side."

"You're not coming too?" Tri-clops asked the suspicion on his features clear.

"Our enemy finds them self indisposed at the moment." Saying that Evil-lyn took the jar containing Skeletor's weapon. "I will go and seize the initiative." Tri-clops nodded as he entered the portal to continue his work on his weapons.

* * *

Evil-lyn had to work quickly in order to find the brat and eliminate him, preferably before he finished with his... unpleasant business. Skeletor's minions gathered themselves on the mystic mountains, with the arsenal of magical artifacts safe Tri-clops resumed his work.

"Shall I take these to somewhere safe?" Webstor asked as he loomed over the Evil Warriors.

"No, but you may take my engineer somewhere that he can work." Skeletor stated as he turned his attention to his three eyed subordinate. "I trust that Trap-Jaw isn't the only one who will be benefiting from the fruits of your labors today?"

"Quite." Tri-Clops presented the fruit of his labor, a energy cannon. "This one uses the Diamond of Disintegration."

"See to it that it is put to good use." Skeletor stated directing the three eyed cyborg's attention over the horizon: where the mix of races from across Eternia had gathered together into a giant mass of violence and was now barreling down on the heads of the people who meant to keep the mystic mountains from their rightful owners.

* * *

"Lord Dactus, your forces will be one of the key stones in the battle to come." Though the Eternian royal guard had access to a plethora of flying machines the amount of people who could actually fly was limited to the Andreenids, the Avion and the Spleian, and two of those were now the prisoners of the spiders.

"Our steel is at your service your majesty, but there is... an issue that needs to be addressed." The spiders were quite clearly adept at defeating flight born enemies, the loses suffered by the Andreenids and Avion's were evidence enough of that. "My people are willing risk their lives to protect Eternia, but we will not partake in a suicide mission."

"Spiders tactics lend themselves to hunt air born prey well." Daniela choose this moment to pipe up. "They set their webs to catch air born insects. Sometimes their webbing is not even something you can cut by swinging your sword at it over and over again. Other times it's so thin that it can't be seen by the naked eye." These little cockroaches were indeed formidable, but that didn't mean that method's didn't exist to deal with them. "When faced with a large amount of spider webbing it's often better to burn it then trying to clear it by hand."

"So we should burn the webbing." Randor immediately moved to have flame throwers mounted on his gunships.

"There are two problems with this plan." The ghostly sorceress stated holding two fingers in the air. "The first is the possibility that they have fire proofed the webbing."

"Is that even possible?" Lord Dactus asked surprised by this revelation.

"In my world it was possible for spiders to digest a substance called Graphene, which is both fire and a great many other things proofed, then integrate it into their webbing to make the stuff that much stronger, though I have my doubts that even with all the things the skeleton stole that he has access to graphene we still do not know what kind of effect that the Andreenid's ambrosia has had on the webbing." Daniela calmly explained, though she saw a scheming type face on the lord of the bats.

"Perhaps we can use this to make armor: provided that we can cut it to a suitable size that is." On that note the Lord of the Bat's rejoined the conversation to see what more he could learn.

"The second possibility is that the webs are not fire proofed at all but rather are in fact extremely flammable." It made sense for that to be the case, ambrosia was basically super concentrated proteins, a super fuel for organic engines, fuel typically acted as an accelerant for fires. "If the spiders have done something to their webs that makes them unusually flammable then setting them on fire risks killing their prisoners instead of rescuing them."

"Then what are we gonna do to free them?" Lord Dactus asked cocking a interested brow.

"There are a few possibilities, if I take He-Man with me I should be able to run them off from the least riskiest to the most." Daniela produced a ball of green energy in her hand. "When we have their hostages out of the way I'll fire off the signal flare." The present leaders nodded their heads before allowing Daniela and the muscular young man to be on their ways.

Stealth had always been one of Daniela's area's of expertise, even before she came to this world the combination of invisibility and intangibility made spotting her rather difficult, as was the case with anyone she decided to work with. The two worked their way up the mountains quickly and they soon found their prize floating in mid air. If not for all the bundles of webbing with prisoner's inside you'd never see the extremely thin dust colored webbing that blended in so well with the walls of the mystic mountains.

"Now how do we free them in a way that doesn't get them killed?" Adam questioned as he looked at the webbing.

"My intangibility means that I can go in and get them, my clones means that I can free them all at once, the issue here is that for each clone I make I grow weaker and weaker, I can't work and fend those things off at the same time." Daniela stated and Adam nodded in response.

"I'm not Manny, I might not even be the King of Grey Skull, but it will a hot day in the arctic before I let a bunch of spiders beat me!" Adam stated his voice spitting out a rigorous vigor.

Daniela was the first to go to work, spreading herself out to tend to the many prisoners that had been taken from both sides of the mystic mountains naturally the spiders took notice of this and were not amused in the slightest. Already they were crawling along the webs making their way to the numerous Dani's in front of them, cue Adam coming up to the plate.

"As they say, if you want to squash a bug." Adam smashed his fingers into the nearest section of mountain, and through shear brute force picked up a chunk of granite easily one hundred times his size. "Hit it with a Rock!" Saying that Adam threw the stone over the mountain pass and it landed on top of the spiders as they attempted to board the web squashing them in the process and delaying more of them from proceeding. Course the spiders weren't just coming from one side of the mountain, and the ones who were already on the web needed dealing with as well. Fortunately Adam had a plan for that. "Sorry guys, nothing personal!"

Thus Adam jumped toward's one of the newly freed Andreenids and used him as a swing to reach the web. How did he know that he wouldn't end up stuck? The Spiders drew him a map! When Spiders make their webs they do not make all of their threads sticky, so that they themselves do not become stuck when they crawl up to their prey to finish them off. Thus Adam found the perfect spot to hang from, then like a child on a close line, he began bouncing up and down trying, and succeeding, in knocking the spiders off of the web and into the abyss below.

"Would you mind not playing with the web while I'm trying to work with it?" Daniela, more accurately her nearest clone, asked as she phased another Andreenid out of the web.

"Sorry, trying to show off." Adam saw that the spiders were already trying to regroup to make a second attempt at the web. "But as long as you're here, I could use a lift."

The Andreenid took hold of He-Man and together with his comrades carried him over to the other side of the mountain range and dropped him on the other side where he went to work. Naturally the spiders swarmed Adam as spiders are one to do, dog piling him, biting him, binding him in silk, but all for not. The fangs that could crunch their way through solid stone could not breach the flesh of the king's avatar, spider silk that could bind the strongest Andreenid soldier on ambrosia could not hold him, and a army of creatures that brought low two mighty warrior civilizations could not stop him. Trap-Jaw looked down on Adam from up high, his armor further enhanced through the use of ambrosia enhanced silk to protect his unarmored flesh. Before Trap-Jaw couldn't think of a way someone could defeat Beast man, now he could think of one way.

"Boss. Are you seeing this?" Trap-Jaw asked aiming the energy cannon with it's camera scope attached directly at Adam as he tore through the ranks of the spiders.

"Seeing. Not having a hard time believing." Beast man did say the child had a sibling, but Skeletor distinctly remembered him saying that one was a female. "Still it does explain what happened to Beast Man." Well it didn't answer such relevant information such as whom this new warrior was or where this bottomless pit of power he had came from, it also didn't look like he would be captured any time soon, which also meant that he would not be telling them what happened to Evil Seed and Beast Man any time soon. "Eliminate him." Skeletor stated his tone of voice equal parts ruthless and uncompromising.

"With pleasure! Been meaning to try this thing out!" Trap-Jaw's arm weapon had been upgraded with the Emerald of Evaporation, a magic jewel that converts solid matter into a air born vapor, it was easily one of the most destructive of the magic artifacts Skeletor's forces had stolen and Trap-Jaw could feel that in it's immense raw potential glowing through his armor. It did have a bit of a charge time though, nothing that he was too concerned about mind you. But it stuck out like a sore thumb for Adam.

"One of Skeletor's minions?" Adam pulled out his sword and held it up to the far off enemy as he continuously walked forward, fully aware of the fact that behind him was Dani and the captive Andreenid's and Avions.

"Suit yourself man, I know which one I'd bet on." Trap Jaw's weapon finished charging and fired it's beam directly at Adam.

The Man dressed as a barbarian blocked the beam with his blade, not that Trap Jaw cared. After all the metal eating cyborg had been promised and delivered a weapon capable of reducing anything that it comes into contact into vapor and thus far it proved correct. It was even destroying the mass of stone to either side of his target in a massive cone shape, were there anything above where he was right now he strongly suspected that would be blown away right now too. Frankly speaking this much destructive power was not necessary, his target was likely long gone by now, Trap Jaw simply got this feeling of immeasurable catharsis from unloading all of his power on the enemy at once, even if it did mean that it would take time for him to recharge his power.

"HAHA! Eat it and like you son of..." Once the smoke had cleared Trap Jaw was greeted by the sight of monstrously ripped barbarian holding out a super heated sword, everything around him destroyed, but everything behind him was intact. "What Just?" Adam crossed the distance in a instant, super human leg strength shot him through the air with a jump and was instantly face to face with Trap Jaw. "I'm-I'm indestructible!"

"Then it will be your cell." Daniela phased her hand into TrapJaw's neck and disconnected the wire that allowed him to control his cybernetic parts dropping him to the ground. With a yank Daniela removed the weapon planted into the arm before opening another portal beneath the dropped behind of Trap Jaw landing him in a cell far away from here. "Quit stalling." Daniela phased her arm into the weapon and took control of it in the process. "There's work to do." In front of them were the spiders mass produced by Webstor, and behind them were the newly freed Andreenids and Avions joined with the Eternian alliance.

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**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: That it is. Not having a clear idea for the plot for the story in advance is the main reason why my past Grim Tales have gotten away from me, I don't intend to make that mistake again. I have a series of plot points worked out in advance, how long it will take for each point to be completed is something that I simply do not know.

Zwei Eis: Glad I hit your nostalgia button.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note**: Not a lot to say right now, trying to take it easy this weekend for once and hoping it doesn't bite me in the arse too hard. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 10: The Secret of Skeletor

Evil-Lyn stalked through the corridors of Snake Mountain, her quarry possessed both invisibility and intangibility and he was loose inside of a maze, finding him would not be easy. She had Skeletor's weapon with her, a heart from gods know what kind of creature that carried the promise of putting down an immortal hung from her staff in a lantern like contraption. Still that was the easy part, a gift given to her, she still had to find the lunatic, and hope that she can shoot him with this thing.

"So... this is where you expelled Tri-Clop's technology." Evil-Lyn noted as she found the pile of crushed circuit boards and mechanical parts that were integrated into mechanized skeletons. "But where are you?" Evil-Lyn's magic attempted to conduct a censor sweep of Snake Mountain, the mass of a lava and snake was in it's own way a fully realized living being, one with a immune system, a immune system that knew when it was under attack. The issue here was that the virus that was attacking the mountain was far better at trans-versing it than she was.

"Marco..." And then came the taunting remarks. "Yah know, I thought you were the smart one among your boss's pack of cronies."

"My associates have dangerous abilities, in the hands of right brand of idiocy, I'd rather not have them turned on me." Evil-lyn stated recognizing the fact that her quarry was now hunting her too.

"Oh that's not what I meant." Then Manny's face emerged from the darkness, directly next to the dark sorceress's head. "I meant that you're trying to fight me at all!"

Immediately Evil-Lyn spun around and without another word fired a energy beam from from the scepter, through the heart in a jar, at Manny at point blank range. To be fair if not for the invisible energy barrier that he has built around his body at all times then that beam would have definitely connected with him, as it stood it bounced off of his form and instead hit Evil-lyn knocking her back as the effect of the monster heart went to work.

* * *

Adam took full advantage of his surroundings to rip the spider webbing off of the gap of the canyon and threw it over the hoard of spiders that were standing in his way, the stickiness of the webs and the weight of the rocks that were torn off the mountain side served to pin them down.

"Everyone who can fly over the webs advance, everyone else should take positions on that cliff range with long distance weaponry." Daniela stated directing the group's attention to the nearby cliff side. The Andreenids and Avions were still too weak from their time in the webs to be helpful, the time had come for the Spleians to shine, carrying their ground based allies up the cliffs.

"In coming." Adam pointed his sword over the horizon as he saw the spiders flood out of the caves to attack them.

Whip Lash was one of the burliest of Skeletor's Evil Warriors, a huge bright green lizard man with a club for a tail and a thick set of back plates, he had a appearance like a two legged ankylosaurous. Currently Whip Lash was making use of the laser blaster that Tri-clops had built earlier and was trained on Adam.

"No that isn't going to work." The one that Trap-Jaw had is much stronger than the one Whip Lash had gotten and he was still beaten, what was really needed was a way to slow down the enemies movements. "Yeah that might work." On that note Whiplash continuously fired off the laser beam at the cliffside above him before retreating into the caves that were now buried under a pile of stones. "Skeletor!" Whiplash ran up to his master and kneeled before him. "The warrior who defeated Trap Jaw is making his way here! What do we do?"

"Hmm. Interesting, I assume that the sorceress who took Trap Jaw away is with him?" Skeletor questioned causing his subordinate to nod his head. "For now we need more information to compile a strategy to use against the warrior. Trigger a rockslide to separate him from the sorceress." On Skeletor's command Whiplash nodded his head excitedly. Whiplash ran over to the sections of caves that bordered on the edge of the mountain and began randomly firing off his weapon into the cavern walls while Webstor approached Skeletor.

"The Eternians are on the door step and you do nothing. Your Evil Warriors fall like dominoes and now you order your forces to make rubble of my base of operations!" Webstor snapped making it clear he was greatly stressed by these revelations.

"As you have said, we are not allies. Yet. I am merely making a effort to retrieve my subordinates that have been taken prisoner by the enemy, to do that I need to capture and interrogate the sorceress who abducted them." As Skeletor explained this, the terrain of the mountain outside had changed as the ground started shaking, the ground was moving now shifting downward.

* * *

"Adam!" Daniela shouted and Adam knew what she was thinking.

With a single great leap the super human warrior had head the landslide off at the pass. Grabbing hold of the biggest piece of solid stone he could Adam tore it out and formed a barrier to stop the rock slide in it's infancy. However while he was busy doing that one of the spiders had sneaked up on Dani and fired one of it's webs at her, sadly for the spider Dani was quite prepared for such occasion with the web harmlessly passing her by, what with her being intangible.

"Hmm. This must be the one who Beast Man was talking about earlier." Skeletor commented watching Daniela through a magic window. "However magic should still work on her." Whiplash moved to an opening leading to the outside and readied the energy cannon that used a magical crystal as an energy source and fired it at Daniela's unprotected backside.

"Gah!" Keep in mind that Daniela was exhausted and overworked, in one part due to her own bad habits and the other because of Skeletor's attack on the capital and her constantly working to clean up the situation afterwards.

"Dani!" Adam tried to shift the weight of the avalanche but soon realized it was a process that was less a matter of shoving the rock around with brute force but more about delicately shifting and dispersing the weight in multiple favorable directions, less he be buried under a literal pile of rocks and his family on top along with their army are killed.

In the mean time the spiders webbed Daniela up and dragged her inside of the mountain, Skeletor observed Daniela's unconscious form closely. He was able to confirm that she was her brother's sister, the resemblance between Dani and Manny was uncanny, when you ignored the fact that one was a six foot tall brute and the other a sickly 4 foot 7. More obvious than that though was what the unconscious girl was doing, even as they spoke smoke came out of her wounds and reassembled themselves into the pinnacle of health. Different from Manny though is the white rings that appeared around her body, replacing pale blue flesh and white hair with healthy white flesh and black hair and making the other half dead man in the caverns all the more curious.

"Webstor, I believe we have a opportunity that you may be interested in." Skeletor stated directing his attention to his arachnid cohort.

* * *

Daniela awoke to the feeling of biting stinging pain running through her entire body, looking around she saw the familiar form of the spiders having surrounded her on all sides, biting into her torso, her limbs, one was even on her head. From each fang of each maw venom was being injected into Daniela's body dissolving her organs and sucking the fluid mess inside of the spiders, and yet Daniela was also regenerating at a alarmingly rapid pace.

"Interesting." Skeletor watched the exchange with a perverse interest. "Given the ambrosia's toxicity to most forms of life I expected it to have overpowered that ridiculous immortality that your family seems to be so well known for." Saying that Skeletor admired the Ramstone that he took off of Daniela's body. "But it also acts as a steroid as well, if only a temporary one. It's effects must also be boosting your body, but for how long I wonder?"

"UGH. Cute!" Snapping like that Daniela went ghost and turned intangible, and to her surprise so did all the spiders feeding off of her.

"I had my doubts Skeletor but I admit." Webstor lowered himself from above via his web. "This is promising."

"Course right now your children are only getting a fraction of the benefit, and like what that ambrosia is with most others without the stabilizing technology invented by my subordinate that power will kill them eventually." Skeletor explained gesturing to Tri-Clops who was watching from afar.

"And what of your people?" The spider asked cocking four suspicious eyes.

"Funny thing is: there's a amulet for that." Skeletor stated holding up the Ramstone for Webstor's viewing pleasure.

Aiming the jade amulet at Daniela, Skeletor fired off a mind invading spell.

* * *

"GYAAAHHH!" Credit where it was due, because of the Mental Block Skeletor was expecting Daniela to be far less resilient then this. As it stood her mind's thoughts were buzzing by him at a speed where he could not read them. "Sod off you!" Daniela's voice had turned somewhat demonic inside of her mind. "Your forcing my thoughts to a agonizing crawl just by being here!"

"A mind as they say is a horrible thing to waste." Fearlessly Skeletor raised his staff and aimed it at the mental projection of Daniela. "So before I waste it, I will have you tell me what I want to know!" Skeletor blasted at the scenery with his weapon, trying to disrupt the flow of information so that he could actually decipher the pieces.

"Funny thing about twins. We have a sort of... connection if you will." On that note, a shadow appeared in Daniela's mind, one that naturally bypassed the barrier their mother had put in place, one that required that Daniela set up her own defenses to keep out, less it's violent destructive presence burned her to her very soul. "You've met my brother yes?"

"HAHAHA-HAHA-HA-HAAAA-HHHAAA-HHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

* * *

"KKKYYYAAAHHH!" Skeletor was forcibly expelled from his body, the malevolent laughter he had just heard shook him to his very soul. High on adrenaline and fear Skeletor immediately stood up.

"Boss? What's wrong?" Whiplash asked looking concerned.

"I... miscalculated." Skeletor expected that the Heart in Evil-lyn's capable hands would be enough to finish off Manny before he could enact his typical brand of idiocy upon them, now however that did not seem to be the case. "No... he is enraged, whatever manner of irrationality he normally operates off of, he isn't now. We can still salvage this operation." Saying that Skeletor prepared his plans.

* * *

Inside of Snake Mountain, in the moments before Skeletor's attempted breach on Daniela's mind, crying was echoing from the mouth of the great serpent, to the immeasurable confusion of the Masters.

"What the...?" Sitting on the edge of his jump jet Man at Arms stared in confusion at Manny.

"Rock a Baby on the Tree tops, when the wind blows the cradle will pop..." The infant that Manny was trying to soothe only cried harder now. "Duncan this your youth what am I doing wrong?"

"Give it here!" Man at Arms immediately took the bundle of purple clothe and baby and put his expertise in soothing infants to work with the ease by which someone might remember to ride a bicycle. "Shh shh. Easy there." Credit where it was due, Duncan knew what he was doing when it came to babies.

"Where did she come from though?" Teela asked suspiciously narrowing a glare at Manny.

"Oh she's Skeletors magic shooting lackey." Something simultaneously stopped working in the heads of every one of the Masters all at once.

""""Say what?""""

"I know right?" Manny asked his face indicating that he knew as little of what was going on right now as the others.

"I think he's serious." Man at Arms held the child out at arms length, the purple cloth he was cradling her in was in fact Evil-Lyn's dress.

"Right... Manny protocol." Teela stated face palming. Manny protocol FYI could be best summarized as 'pretend that this is normal and run with it.' It has worked out beautifully thus far.

"Walk us through what happened." Duncan ordered cradling his one time enemy.

"I was picking on the crazy lady, she whipped around, tried to zap me with this thingie." Manny stated holding out Evil-Lyn's staff, still with the Heart in a jar hanging off of it. "Next thing I knew this happened." Manny stated gesturing to Duncan with the child in his arms.

"A Time Beast is a terrifying creature."

"GYAAHHH!" The group was spooked as they saw a ghostly figure floating up through the ground. There was a vague resemblance to Evil-Lyn, in that they had the same style of clothing, but this figure was far brawnier, and he had no face. Actually reminded Manny a little bit like Orko truth be told. "They have the ability to age a being to dust, or flow their foes backwards until they have disappeared from time and space." The Faceless one stated as he hovered in the air.

"That might've been what this was for." Manny stated examining the staff. Skeletor figured that he couldn't outlast an immortal, so instead he decided to do the exact opposite. It was ingenious in it's own right.

"And you are?" Duncan asked looking suspicious.

"The Guardian of the Ramstone, and someone with a vested interest in the life of the child you hold in your hands. And in exchange for her I offer the weakness of the stone." The Faceless one stated to the confusion of everyone present, finally the scout went first.

"Why would we want to know the weakness of the Ramstone?" Meckaneck asked, as his colleagues were too dumbfounded.

"Give it a moment." The Faceless one stated looking at Manny. "Three. Two..."

Manny was suddenly hit with a blaring headache, a million thoughts per second running through his mind all at once.

"Oh wow! Been a while since that happened." Manny laughed at the feel of his sister's thoughts blaring into all channels of his mind. "Hey sis what's the big idea with the sudden mind stabs?" The various masters looked at each other and collectively shrugged in confusion. "Sis?" Daniela's thoughts were starting to break down now, becoming disorganized and confused, but eventually he saw the familiar form of a certain bone faced man in the confusion.

"Ohhhh... Hehehehehe..." Manny stated laughing quietly, like he was trying to be polite to someone who just told an outstandingly bad joke. "Huu... Hey anyone know how far away the mystic mountains are?"

"Time Beasts have two hearts." The Faceless One stated once again getting Manny's attention. "And my Ramstone in Skeletor's possession will allow him to bypass your defenses. So unless you want that to happen to you." The Faceless One stated indicating the infant witch that he had some connection to. "Listen!"

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**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: If you say so. Manny, he's such a troll.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note**: Apologies for the delay, a random storm decided to shut down the internet in my area for the weekend and as such the publishing of this weeks chapters hit a few roadblocks that have only now been resolved. With this in mind I have published this chapter as soon as I possibly could and with that in mind please, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 11: The Show of Skeletor

Storms were brewing around the Mystic mountains, and Skeletor was getting some idea of how it was happening. His little torture puppet was being defiant as usual, though he didn't realize that she has the ability to spawn natural disasters. That was useful in it's own right, having Webstor recall her children into the nest Skeletor was now prodding Daniela into dumping disaster after disaster onto the mystic mountains forcing the Eternian army to retreat. Skeletor doubted that even that brat can carve his way through the mass of ice, snow, wind and thunder that he had set up, and the moment that he does Skeletor had his combination of Time Beast heart and the Ramstone to make him not exist anymore. Still Skeletor had to give the boy credit, his torturing him and his men into submission has forced him to improve upon his leadership abilities and in turn become a more effective commander. Being made to stew in humiliation for so many years gave Skeletor the motivation to never taste such defeat again making him research every possible avenue, find every singular weapon, put in fail safe after fail safe, train and empower those who were under him, seek out new more powerful allies, and make them seek him out. Still they had taken massive casualties, the appearance of the other twin was one of the biggest factors, as was that young man who had taken to Dressing as his ancestor Grey Skull most likely to inspire the other Eternian soldiers. Still in spite of the losses his men have suffered victory was still in his grasp, provided that he can get his forces back.

"I grow impatient little girl." Skeletor stated as he looked down on Daniela who was wedged between the grasp of several spiders who were dissolving regenerating flesh and eating it. Daniela had implemented measures for defending her secrets that were far more effective than the ones she had in place before: can't keep Bone head out of her head? Then she'll just flood it with the limitless supply of stupidity that her brother constantly generated and bury her own thoughts under it. "You are doing well to hold out so well, but soon your brother will be here and then he will be gone and you won't have his reservoir of idiocy to draw upon." Skeletor could afford to be patient, that was chief among the gifts given to him by Hordak, immortality through death. The Royal family would rot away with time, memories would fade but he? He was Eternal, and with exception of all but two of his enemies it was advantage he could monopolize, and once he had dealt with them he would.

"""RRRAAAWWWRRR!"""

The several roars of a great many monsters echoed throughout the mystic mountains. Looking outside Skeletor saw a horde of dragons flying straight at the mountains: they did not care about the ice and snow, their fire breath burned the frozen water into mist, they did not care about the bolts of lightning falling from the sky, for they were far too vast for it to reach all of them, they did not care about the wind brushing them about, merely spreading their wings and letting it carry them through the mountains. But what else could be expected? Dragons after all thrive in brutally harsh environments. Especially brutally harsh environments that had so much food packed into one place. The claws of the first dragon broke through the walls of the cavern where Webstor was hiding her young and it's head poked through and pulled out with a mouthful of spiders sticking out the edges of it's mouth with satisfying crunching echoing about.

"Skeletor."

"Yes Webstor?"

"I agree to your terms."

At once the bone faced villain swept into action, hoisting the Ramstone above his head it glowed with crackling power and spat out a huge mass that shaped itself into the form of a massive bull composed of energy, slamming into the dragon horns first and knocking him out of the hole. Quickly Skeletor rose through the air under the influence of the glowing ruby colored gems in his eye sockets and once on the entrance of the hole formed a ball of energy from his staff and sent it streaking through the air. The dragons, naturally attracted to shiny things as they were, quickly followed suit chasing after the ball of light like puppies fighting over a toy.

"Now than, let us focus on getting my people out of the Eternian prison shall we? The other one will be here soon and he will be capable of destruction on a far grander scale then these dragons." Speaking of which, one of the dragons hadn't followed the light ball that Skeletor had prepared, in fact he was looking directly at him expectantly. "Now what has you so interested?"

"Behold!" Floating above the dragons was a sight Skeletor was somewhat familiar with spying on his brother's family all these many years, a short black skinned figure dressed in red with a purple scarf. "I am the Great Wizard Orko!"

"Ah Randor's court jester, so you were the one who lured the dragons to the mystic mountains. That was actually a pretty good trick, I will have to remember it." Saying that Skeletor prepared to smite the pest before him.

"Ah but it pales in comparison to my next trick. Behold your doom!" In a explosion of smoke and noise Orko produced in his hands an ordinary looking clay pot. "Behold the Mighty Pot of Power!" Skeletor did not look impressed.

"Very well Jester, let's see how your pot compares." Skeletor readied the Ramstone to fire at the same time that magic swirled around Orko's pot. Then a single spark of purple colored light connected between Orko and Skeletor, and while neither side had a scratch to their name there was a clear reversal of the power that had occurred, for floating high above Skeletor and looking down on him was Orko with the Ramstone in hand.

"WHAT!?" Enraged and confused Skeletor quickly smashed the pot on the ground before glaring at Orko, the dwarfish wizard had just enough time to cast the Ram Stone's magic firing off a green ram shaped mass. Skeletor focused magic through crystal eyes and fired red beams at the green beast that had appeared before him, their clash of powers shredding one another utterly in a stalemate. Skeletor was desperate, of all the fail safes he had in place this was definitely not the one that he could afford to lose, without the armor piercing power of the Ramstone his time heart would fail against Manny as Evil-lyn's had.

"Thanks for holding him off Orko! I'll take it from here." Speaking of the proverbial Devil, the meat witted thug that Skeletor feared above all else put his hand on top of his head and gripped it tightly. "Orko help Dani!" Manny threw Skeletor into the Hurricane and quickly and promptly gave chase, the two of them crashed into several rock formations, passed through a blizzard and were struck by lightning before they finally crashed with Skeletor pinned on the ground. The bone faced warlord kicked Manny off of him and jumped to his feet, leveling a glare at Manny as his crystal eyes glowed with rage Skeletor's mind buzzed with activity. Right now his priority was getting the Ramstone and the Time heart back, these two items together were what were vital to his plan to defeat Manny and without them he was as good as dead, which led to the next subject.

"Before we fight I have one question. What's so funny?" Skeletor had always wondered about that, of his many unpleasant memories of this boy most of them were filled with the sound of laughter, none of it his.

"You're asking me to explain the joke to you? Eh. What the heck for once I don't feel like laughing." Even though Manny said that he had the beginnings of a smirk on his face. "You are. You. Are. A. Joke. You went so far as to change your name to try and sound scary. Meanwhile I'm the son of a lady who conquered one of the biggest chunks of the underworld, a place full of guys as bad if not worst than you, and went onto become the most feared being there in, and her names Mandy." Indeed, with Mandy set as benchmark Skeletor did look like nothing but a laughable fool. "Want some free advice? Start calling yourself Keldor again and start over again from scratch." Then a whirling mass of ecto energy appeared in both of Manny's hands at the same time. "Here, lemme help." With that Manny threw the balls of ecto energy to either side of him and they smashed directly into the ground forming two massive craters to either side of him in between which was a large runway. "'His attack missed' is probably what your thinking right? That's an failure of imagination on your part." Manny explained as he proceeded crack his fingers.

"Don't think I am going to idly stand by and let you do what you want!" Skeletor slammed the butt of his staff into the ground and opened a portal behind him, Manny however was having none of. With one swipe of his leg he shattered the staff and both of the skull faced man's legs, and followed that up with two foot stomps shattering arm bones in the process.

"Did you think I wasn't going to attack you? No you mind raped my sister dude, so now I'm gonna do something worst to you and your cronies." Saying that Manny took the head of the staff and smashed it on the ground directly in front of Skeletor's face.

"Good to know!" Suddenly Skeletor fired off his eye beams at point blank range at Manny causing him to disappear from sight.

"Please don't mistake me for my sister." Skeletor tried to turn his head to face Manny but his foot stomped his head into position. "Unlike Dani who lazily phases through attacks I dodge everything that comes at me down to the last." Manny phased through the back of Skeletor's head and took the Cordinite eyes from their sockets, robbing Skeletor of his final weapon. "Now wait right here, I just gotta go get a few things." Manny produced a sonic boom when he jumped through the air.

* * *

Tri-Clops was leading the counter offensive against the Eternian forces, the artifact he hard wired into his head piece giving him vastly superior surveillance and aim capabilities. Tri-clops could easily snipe at the enemy even if both he and they were behind cover, and the weather was making it difficult for the enemy to get out of cover to retaliate.

"Keep up the pressure! Don't let them get through!" "You got it-!" Whiplash sounded like he wanted to say more but didn't for some strange reason.

"All over it-!" Clawful sounded the same way but Tri-clops wasn't paying attention.

"How did you-!" Tri-Clops was paying attention now.

Unfortunately too late as his head bounced off of the barrier and he was rendered unconscious with his visor shattered.

"Hey guys! It's alright I knocked them all out!" Manny shouted waving bloody hands over the barricade.

* * *

Orko had brought Daniela back to her lab, he was currently reading a card with a set of instructions imbued on it instructing those who would read it on how to put Daniela's mind back together in just such case of emergency.

"First wear safety glasses." Adam, now shrunk down to a more reasonably size now that he's returned Grey Skull's power, donned a pair of Sun Glasses and put them on Daniela's face. "Then arm Neuralizer." The glasses came with a small pen like device which with the press of a button caused the top to pop out. "Aim red light at subject's forehead." Adam fumbled with the device for a few moments before it was pointing the right way. "Pull trigger then immediately say 'the stupidity doesn't exist.'" Adam flashed the device in Daniela's face.

"The Stupidity doesn't exist." To Adam's words Daniela's eyes blinked several times and shook her head.

"Ugh... what a headache."

""SUCCESS!"" Orko and Adam gave each other a celebratory double high five.

"What happ-UGH!" Daniela suddenly tripped over herself and fell flat on her feet. "Why am I a foot taller then what I was this morning?" Daniela was experiencing the same phenomena that Manny put himself through when he uses the bathing slime to dissolve and rebuild his body, her body had over compensated for the effects of the ambrosia infused spider venom, the end result? Daniela's arms and legs were now disproportionately longer and thicker then what they were suppose to be. "Ugh. Lovely." Dani noted looking at herself in the mirror. "Here's hoping I don't end up with some freakish disproportions." Then she realized something else too. "And now I have to redo my implants too. Great." Daniela went for her closet and discovered that her problems were just continuously piling on. "Perfect, the Trifecta. Maybe I should get Manny to make me some new clothes."

"Manny?" Manny the complete and utter savage Manny whom Daniela can barely stand on most days. "Are we thinking about the same guy here?"

"You remember when he dated that tailor a little while back?" Daniela stated with a questioning brow.

"Aha." Adam stated his face still wracked with disbelief. "Still how the heck does he have a hobby like that?"

"Does it look like normal sized clothes fit him?" Daniela asked catching herself in the mirror now. "Or me now for that matter?" The wings Daniela could manage, but this would require work.

"Okay but why do you look so reluctant to ask him?" Adam still looked extremely suspicious.

"If you knew why he developed a hobby like that then you would not be able to cringe hard enough." Daniela warned shuddering in terror.

"Hey sis!" Manny dropped in outside of the mobile laboratory, before he barged in and gave Daniela a hug.

"UGH. Manny I got enough problems without you crushing my spine." Actually Daniela could use some spine crushing, make her mid-section grow to match her 'freakishly long limbs.'

"Did you get taller? Finally took my advice about the bath's eh?" Manny stated with a wink and a nudge.

"I should be so lucky, worst yet I'm going to have to ask you to for some help replacing my wardrobe." Daniela stated as she popped her spine back into place with the realization that from that alone she probably grew an inch. "Sure. I'm gonna be working with the spider silk for a little while you want me to make you something out of it?"

"Huu... ultra lightweight, flexible and durable ambrosia reinforced spider silk and you are perverting it for one of your weird hobbies." Daniela could only shake her head at this. "Yes I would like some, as long as it is going to be indestructible then it would be good if I could move fast in case a fight broke out."

"I can do that." Saying that Manny went off to complete work on a show he had planned on putting on.

* * *

As for the Evil Warriors that Manny had taken into custody? Manny sent King Randor a message inviting him to the pair of craters where Manny had shattered Skeletor's legs, to be more accurate he invited the entire allied eternian army, he even carved out rubble from the land slide into crude chairs and filled the craters with them like the stands at a show and prepared a huge curtain of purple spider silk for the makeshift stage. Adam had been seated next to Daniela Manny's freshly minted clothes hugging her frame. Despite Daniela's suddenly manifesting body issues Adam noted that she appeared to be physically flawless, her over all proportions would be nice on a adult woman let alone a teenager two years younger than him, the stripes on her outfit emphasized her bust and rear with Horizontal stripes and her waist with vertical stripes, the slit in her ankle length skirt drew attention to long and muscular legs while darkened navy blue and gold colors highlighted her general paleness and the contrast made her appear to glow. Daniela's concerns though had little to do with looks and more to do with the fact that the distribution of fat and muscle tissue and differently sized leg bones which might demand alterations in the near future. But first first thing was first, Manny had a show to put on.

"Thank you all for your patience." Manny floated up through the ground wearing a black suit, because now he apparently felt it was a appropriate occasion for black tie. "Tonight will feature the debut of the 'Grim Family Fall catalog.'" As night fell Manny used the light from two of his ecto bombs as make shift stage lights to highly the back of the stage where he hung the curtains, tugging on a near invisible string the first 'model' of the evening appeared. "Dressed in our new evening wear we have Whiplash..." The humanoid lizard had been dressed in a purple evening gown, one of the accompanying gloves looked like they had been stitched into a wig which was firmly rooted in place and the other into his hip. Additionally Whiplash's mouth had also been stitched closed which together with him clearly struggling not to move forward likely added to a general 'I have no mouth and I must scream' look that was going on.

"Your majesty..." One of the members of the royal guard had a horrified look on his face.

"Save it. This is way worst than anything we could do to them." The King had nothing more he could say.

"Next we have this years latest casual wear modeled by everyone's favorite Fish..." Fishman was dressed in something far easier to move in anyway, a pink button up t-shirt with a pocket on one side and a suspender in the other, paired off with a black skirt and white knee socks.

"Oh I might want that one. Not previously worn obviously." Daniela commented the same way one might the weather.

"How can you watch..." Adam looked like he was still trying to comprehend what was happening. "...this?"

"I understand that you are a pacifist, that you are only willing to use violence when absolutely necessary. In our own way we admire that in you." Daniela stated before her face hardened and turned serious. "But it is because of that this show is necessary."

"What?" Adam asked as his face puzzled in confusion. "There are two methods of permanently neutralizing a enemy, either you kill them, or you break them, humiliate them, make them into a example. In the first case we risk creating a martyr, someone whose death will encourage others to take up their mantle. In the second we take all of the dignity, fear and respect they once commanded and give them a taste of living hell, thereby making sure no one follows their path, but we also risk creating a greater monster in the process." Daniela stated as she noticed she missed the Three eyed Cyborg's turn.

"You sound like a Tyrant." Adam commented as he started to rethink his crush on Daniela.

"I was born of one." Daniela admitted without hesitation. "But tell me which is better? Dispose of one's enemy immediately and thus eliminate the threat they represent? Or enter a eternal state of war with a enemy with no intention of ever making peace?" While Adam was left to ponder this the grand finale of the show had started.

"And now the start of our show, the great Skeletor! In our fall wedding ensemble!" You'd be forgiven for mistaking the bone head for a blushing bride, what with the pure white and overly elaborate wedding dress that he had been decked out in from head to toe, there was even bright red coming out of his face, though rather than flush cheeks it was rage beaming out of his eye sockets as the once great and powerful Skeletor was left with nothing to do but fume.

* * *

Inside of Daniela's laboratory, a click sounded as the invisible latch on the infi-map at last came undone.

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: That they are. Would you like me to send you a list of creatures that have no face which exist in real life? Or what are you describing as a face? Something with eyes and a mouth? A nose? Something you eat and breath through?


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note**: Okay so I went on the literary equivalent of a rampage yesterday, which is a good sign, and I hope that means that I can do so again today and tomorrow. In the mean time though Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 12: A Long Good Bye

With Manny's little show over with and with Skeletor finally locked away Daniela could finally return to her room and catch up on the sleep that she had been missing. Getting out a measuring tape she thoroughly checked all of her limbs and the other parts of her body. As Daniela had feared, the cybernetics that she had painstakingly installed in her body had been damaged, her limbs were now different sizes, abnormal growths had appeared throughout her body and her energy control had been compromised. Letting out a sigh Daniela went into the medical pod to have her body straightened out, unlike Manny Daniela would not tolerate any thing weird popping up that she didn't know how it got there. Speaking of which, Daniela probably should have paid more attention to the artifact on her desk that finally decided to open up.

* * *

Manny had taken Adam and the majority of the masters out to one of his favorite bars, course Manny was too young to be going around drinking, but nobody who saw him could say that, and his body was so ridiculously sturdy that not even drinking a barrel of pure alcohol could effect him.

"To the birthday boy!" Manny shouted while he hoisted a pitcher of suspect drink over the table.

""""""Cheers!"""""" And many Masters followed up with their own oversize pitchers.

Sure Manny took down Skeletor, he took down most of the Evil Warriors too, but with his level of power that was obvious, and it should be noted that he only showed up for the action at the last moment and took his time as well, not to mention that eye scarring show he put on too. Compare and contrast Adam who served as a excellent back bone and pillar of support for the allied Eternian army as they went up against the worst that Skeletor had to offer keeping the entire army safe and sound as Skeletor dumped surprise after surprise down on their heads. Yes without the twins they wouldn't have been able to win, but without the prince they wouldn't have been able to survive.

"Manny..." Adam had the light flush of drunkeness on his face, getting the bar tender to water down his drinks was a wise decision. "Something has been bothering me for a little while now."

"Shoot dude." Manny stated as the liquid from his stein ran down the side of his face like so much drool.

"Dani said your... map thing brought you two here for a reason, that there's something you had to do before it would let you go again." Adam vividly remembered the day that the two of them were dropped into their laps, and who else he met that day as well. It is entirely possible that the Map had dropped them in their midst specifically for the purpose of neutralizing Skeletor, and after the better part of six years he at last had been neutralized. "So... does this mean that you two are going to be leaving now?" Honestly, if they were just dropped here to pick off Skeletor then Adam would have preferred that Manny just dump the judicious violence that he's known for then and there and be done with it. This, this was crueler, growing up with them, getting to know them, coming to depend on them both, and then suddenly having the rug yanked out from him. "Does this mean you two are going to be leaving us?"

"Oi Bartender! No more drinks for this one!" Manny shouted indicating Adam.

"Manny I'm being serious!" Adam stated slamming his mug down on the table.

"So am I." Manny expertly used intangibility to transfer the contents of Adam's glass into his own. "Look buddy I know Dani. She's already set up some fancy pants contraption to lead us straight back here once the map has taken us to wherever we are going. And true while I can't read my sister's mind I can read her actions: she would not treat you _nearly_ as well as she does if she didn't at least like you. Even if she doesn't want to come back here after we leave and get our own stuff sorted out, I do. So do yeah self a favor, go sober up, get yourself over to the lab and talk to her."

"Right!" Shouting that Adam hoisted a empty mug into the air, took a swing of imaginary liquid, before promptly passing out.

"Well that won't do. He'll sleep through the going away party at this rate." Saying that Manny walked over to the bar and placed a order. "One cup of sobriety, STAT!"

Manny said sobriety, but what the Bar Tender but into the blender was a mixture of peppers, cooking oil and some kind of coffee bean expy and other suspect materials. Adam was carelessly tossed onto the bar, a clothes pin placed on his nose, and a funnel into his mouth to wit the bar tender then pored the contents of the blender into.

"KKKYYYAAAHHH!" Adam jumped through the window and dunked his head into a nearby trough for horses, though they would have to change the water now that it had turned a puce color, on the bright side Adam was mighty sober now.

"Alright lets get you home now prince." Manny picked Adam up by his belt and unceremoniously tossed him over his shoulder like a potato sack before Manny made off with him.

* * *

"Who what where!?" When Adam did awaken he discovered he was back in his room.

"Good evening sleepy head." Manny was busy sketching something in a note book though what Adam would leave up to his nightmares. "It's about time."

"Oh Manny I had a horrible nightmare!" Adam stated while he covered his face with his hands. "We were..." And then Adam smelled something on his hands. "I smell Tabasco sauce. That wasn't a dream was it?"

"Just making sure you get the full birthday experience." Manny stated smirking knowingly.

"What did you do!?" Immediately Adam had a look at his reflection in the mirror checking for any signs of having his face drawn on.

"Don't be so paranoid prince, Dani's waiting for us after all." Saying that Manny once again grabbed hold of the prince by his belt and took off through the window.

"MANNY I'M NOT GOING TO SEE HER LIKE THIS I SMELL LIKE VOMIT AND CHEAP ALCOHOL!" To wit's Manny's solution was to simply drag the prince through the lake by his foot at two hundred miles per hour followed by spinning around above Daniela's lab also at two hundred miles per hour. "I hate you." Manny was doing a surprisingly good job at fixing up Adam's clothes and making him look decent, the prince could have done without Manny slicking his hair back using a lougi though. "I hope you realize this."

"You think you hate me now? Just wait until Dani's hormones kick in and she realizes you're a catch!" Saying that Manny smacked Adam in the back hard enough to send him into the front door of Daniela's lab with a bang.

* * *

Dani opened her eyes inside of her pod, mechanical arms were in the process of wiring metal strings through her flesh and rearranging her bits, that is before she head someone slam into her front door.

"Huu. Don't have time for this." First Dani produced a clone of herself, seeing as how she was naked at the moment she then dressed said clone in a house robe and opened the door, letting Adam fall off the door onto the floor. "Well I don't see Manny around here, that doesn't stop him from being here though." Dani looked down at the prince on the floor, unamused. "Adam."

"Dani."

"What are you doing here?" Daniela asked moving to take a seat by a table.

"Manny said you were waiting to meet us." Adam stated as he stood up.

"I've no doubt he did, but as my organs are being rearranged inside of that pod over there I can safely say that he was lying. Tea?" Adam was going to kill Manny later.

"Sorry for wasting your..."

"Sit." Dani's voice left no room for compromise. It was a order as solid as any given by the king and Adam complied. "What precisely prompted this visit?"

"Manny got me drunk at the time... I think you two were here for Skeletor." Adam stated still quite sore in his head. "Even with Grey Skull's sword, I don't think I could beat him. As you said earlier: the way you two do things were necessary to beat him back." Not power but resolve was necessary to beat Skeletor, the resolve to do the wrong thing for the right reason, the decision that Manny made might not be a decision that many would make, but it was absolutely necessary. "That... 'show' that Manny put on, it's not something that I could do. I'm not even sure it's something that I would do in his position. But it worked."

"For now. Don't forget that this is _Manny's_ plan that we'll talking about." Dani stated narrowing a glare at Adam. "What's most especially important here is the follow through. What we've done is create a vacuum in the Dark Continent, a big one. Fill it, before someone else does."

Left with those ominous words Adam saw something beeping, a container designed to monitor magical artifacts, when he saw which one he immediately had a sad look on his face.

"What is it?" Looking behind her Dani saw the beeping case and it's contents. "It can't be." Opening the case Daniela pulled out the item inside, a magical scroll, one which caused no shortage of consternation for the young magic caster. "This bloody thing is working again!?" Daniela was shrieking in surprise as she examined the map's contents.

"...Does this mean you're leaving us?"

"No... No not yet." Daniela put the map back in the box before she continued. "I need to fix myself up first, following that I need to gather supplies and our belongings for the trip. Then there's the matter of the recall beacon to set up too." Dani's explanation created a confused reaction in Adam.

"Recall beacon?" Adam asked a depressed note in his voice, already having resolved the fact that the twins would be leaving them.

"A signal that I can use to track our path back to this world in the event of a emergency, having no safe harbor when trouble hits the fan is... unwise after all." Daniela stated recalling that not having one of those is precisely how they got stuck on this world in the first place. And Adam in turn started to smile.

* * *

Orko's magic was impressive, is ability to wield it under trying circumstances even more so. Under the instruction of Daniela's blue prints Orko skillfully manipulated metal bars into place and used fire magic to weld crimped metal together. Once the tower leading up was finished Orko then used his magic to lift the contraption that Daniela had built to the top and secure it in place. Dani's machines had sorted her body issues, she still had the same mass which at the moment which gave her a adult like body thanks to the corrections her technology made. Adam was spending what he realized would be the last day he could spend for a while with the twins.

"I have to admit you coming up with new and exciting ways to make me squick isn't something I'm going to miss about you two." Adam stated as he watched Manny load his belongings onto the their ship, such items including his bathing slime, book full of designs for questionable things, various torture devices and other things Adam didn't want to know was for. Adam didn't even know what Squick was before he met Manny, granted he was ten but no one else in the castle did either.

"Oh don't worry Adam, I left plenty of ways to make you squick in your room." Manny stated perhaps intentionally missing the point by a mile, on a related note Adam made the decision to move into a new room of the castle.

"Moving on for the sake of my sanity. I'm concerned about Skeletor." Adam stated letting out a sigh.

"I mentally and socially castrated him what threat is there to speak of?" Manny asked a trunk full of his home brewed contraptions on his shoulder.

"Maybe, but when they learn you left it might galvanize them." Adam replied looking for a answer to this question that was bothering him.

"If you're wondering what you should do if bone head breaks out I have one question for you. Why the heck are you asking me?" Manny asked cocking a suspicious brow. "If you're concerned about what skull face and his cronies will do once they break out then lemme give you the obvious solution..."

* * *

Skeletor was already planning his escape from his cell, undeath brings with it patience, in theory he could outlive his wardens but the immortals would be troublesome to deal with. Trap Jaw had been left in the open, his crippled body was apparently deemed enough of a cell by it's own, but he was far enough away that no one could get to him to fix him. Beast Man had been muzzled, his cell electrified to keep him away from any vermin that he could influence, so he was out too. What cybernetics of Tri-clops that could be removed was, likely due to the fact that they mostly consisted of weaponized magical artifacts, leaving the one time cyborg blind so he was out too. As far as Skeletor knew Evil-lyn wasn't captured either, but she hadn't come to save them yet so they shouldn't count on her doing so any time soon. Evilseed and Webstor could be useful, provided that they are not too upset about their previous plan getting them locked into refrigerators in this place. So the question now was how to get out of...

"YOO HOO!" Manny walked into the cell block, fur boa wrapped around his neck and pie tin in one hand, though what was in the tin could hardly be described as pie. "Hello Neighbors!" Manny shouted waving around to the Evil Warriors. "I brought pie!" The pile of green sludge and animal bits that was sitting in a pie tin was put on the ground in front of Skeletor's cell, who watched in disbelief as the 'pie' crawled out of the tin and skittered away back down the hall, as if fleeing in terror.

"'Neighbors?'" Skeletor asked, but of course, for that was of far more concern to him than some grotesque 'pie.'

"Yep. I live down here now, the people upstairs are concerned about you guys trying anything so they put me down here!" Manny looked oddly proud for some reason. "If you try anything I'm to recapture you and spank you in front of all of your friends." They had no idea and didn't want to know what spanking meant. "Welp I'm off." Saying that Manny brandished a net and a wicked smile. "That pie is still a little under cooked." Manny went down the hall after the pie.

Man At Arms intercepted Manny and presented a wheel chair to him, wordlessly Manny sat down in the chair and turned into a robotic figure before being wheeled away.

* * *

"One of Man At Arms training androids? Really?" Adam asked surprised and shocked.

"I also gave him a million horrible things to do to them, just to remind them that I'm here every once in a while. Course one of the worst things I can probably do to them is let their imaginations run wild." Manny had a proud look on his face.

"I sincerely doubt that. Imagination has nothing on you." Adam was traumatized just from Manny's idea of a birthday party after all.

* * *

Finally all the preparations for the Twins to leave were completed, their belongings were loaded on Dani's mobile Laboratory, the beacon was set up to bring them back when necessary and much fanfare had been set up to send the two of them off.

"Goodbye! I love you All! We'll be right back you'll see!" The crowd went from cheering to collectively recoiling in terror and disgust.

"You always leave them wanting More." Saying that Dani forcibly closed the door on Manny before activating the Infi map, connected directly to the lab, and carried them both off through a ghost portal.

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: They were every natural disaster I could think of coming out of the sky happening all at once, what else would it be? Star fish, clams, sea cucumber, basically any sort of mullusk lacks what I would personally call a face.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note**: The Juggernaut is still going strong. On that note, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 13: The Monument of Ruin

The Infi-Map had taken the twins and the ship above orbit on a different planet, according to Daniela's scans the world that they came across was Earth, sadly though it was the Earth that they knew of, a broken husk of a world ravaged by war and the forces of the underworld.

"So close and yet, so far away." Dimension-ally speaking Earth was a hop skip and jump away from the underworld, but when in the underworld was the question, the attack on their home could be happening right now, it could be long over, or it could be that they haven't even been born yet. The point being that they had no idea what would happen if they did try to go there.

"Initiating scan of the planet." Closing her eyes Dani had her equipment launch a more thorough investigation.

Megaville was long since destroyed and picked through, demons and other unpleasantness had long ago made the place their home. Yet the shiniest nugget was the one closest to the surface, for in orbit around the planet was a massive space station. Amused Manny tapped on Daniela's head a couple of times with a big smirk on his face.

"Ow! What was that for!?" Manny pointed out the window at the huge tube of a space station outside the window. "...I suppose it warrants a look."

The old docking clamps were, unexpectedly, in good working order, this stood in sharp contrast with the fact that the station itself looked like it had lost atmospheric pressure.

"We're ghosts right, and immortal too. What do we even need air for anyway?" Manny asked as he promptly phased through the hull of the ship.

Point of interest, they might not need air to live but it seemed that trying to go without it to move was not Manny's brightest move, without the pressure of a atmosphere his body ruptured and without oxygen his ability to move was severely compromised.

"The filter of this re breather has been outfitted with some of your bathing slime, through photo synthesis the carbon dioxide that we exhale should be converted to oxygen." Daniela strapped the gas mask like contraption to her face as she talked with her brother. "As for the vaccuum, tighten up the ecto barrier around your body and..." Manny had already gone through the hull of the ship again. "Huu." Manny had simply opted to adapt to the airless environment in the same way that he adapted to the bathing slime. "... I don't have time for this." Daniela produced a suit of green energy and phased through the ship into the station.

Who ever built the place seemed to favor the color green a lot, that much was apparently obvious, if she had to guess every bit that whoever came here afterwards hated it based on the plethora of claw and slash marks through out the station.

"Ah, finally a witness." An egg shaped service droid, well formerly egg shaped, what with it being chopped in half and all that, nothing that a little tech phasing won't accomplish though. Daniela rendered her head intangible and entered the CPU of the droid.

It was the last of the Robucket's on the station, the only one to survive the events that started with Megaville's destruction, when the demons did come the people in the holding cells were allowed to run wild. Their collective expertise on the Bi-Omnitrix's allowed them to forcibly part the devices from Ben's wrists, it's almost a shame that the station vented all of it's atmosphere before they got to use them, but because of that the potential damage that they could unleash was negated. So here Robucket remained the final guardian of the tomb of Earth's Plum-

"This is all well and good, but what I need right now is to find out what destroyed this thing." Based on that little monologue it should have had quite some time to itself before the whatever tore into the station, and by extension it, came along. "I can use some equipment back in the lab to fix up this imagery." Saying that Daniela flew through the station and back in her mobile laboratory, unknown to her that the station had started moving. "Now than." With the Robucket already connected to the lab Daniela could work on figuring out who or what came here before them, sadly Robucket didn't actually see what attacked him, only the tip of the green blade that slashed through him. However if you look at the shape of the blade and the angle of attack you can figure out what kind of weapon it was. Her Conclusion? "That doesn't make any sense. Manny remind me..." Daniela forgot that the idiot had exploded on the vacuum of space. "Right." The Ghost Girl went outside to fetch the meat head's splattered giblets but to her surprise discovered that he was gone along with the station she just came out of. "Meat head."

Once Manny had decided that it was too much trouble to try and tank the Vacuum of space he instead decided to move the entire station back to the Earth. Firstly Manny reduced the mass of the station using his intangibility, followed up by using the Ghostly Wail to apply reverse thrust until it had safely touched down in a ruined city, however it was done at considerable cost, without a system of support or the lack of gravity of space several sections of the station had collapsed on itself. Dani wasn't too far behind him landing her lab next to the station while Manny was sitting on it waiting for her.

"Meat head. You better not have destroyed anything important when you were going about rampaging." Dani stated glaring at her brother angrily.

"What rampage? Does it look like I went on a rampage here?" Manny directed Dani's attention to the scene of ruin before them, Dani wanted to answer yes but it could have been like this before he got here too. Then again Manny was definitely the one who crashed the satellite into the ground, and he was the one who fired off the Ghostly Wail too.

"...Yes." Manny was not amused by Dani's accusation. "Now I'm going to see if there's anything here that we can salvage that you _didn't_ destroy." Saying that Daniela phased into the station. Robucket had a map of the facility, and the locations of the shiniest nuggets: is what Daniela thought at first. "So this is your shrine." The first location marked on the robot's map was of a mummified arm-less corpse of one Benjamin Tennyson. Apparently this guy was pretty spectacular once, originally armed with a piece of Lvl 20 tech called the Omnitrix it allowed him to transform into any one of over ten thousand different species of alien, later on he got a new model called the Bi-Omnitrix which spliced together two separate alien forms into one more powerful being. Originally the devices had been forcibly removed, then after his death the Robucket reattached them, now it seemed that someone took them again, likely the one who chopped the Robucket in half. "Right... Moving on then."

* * *

While Dani was inside the station a Bored Manny was surveying the environment.

"Hmm. What's the most fun I can have and not get yelled at?" Manny thought about it for a moment before shrugging his shoulders with a smile forming on his face. "Eh what do I care? I don't mind being yelled at." Saying that Manny breathed deeply and released a Ghostly Wail, it's green sonic shock wave traveling across the landscape before ultimately returning to Manny, a sonar made from his ghostly wail. "Hmm... some critters moving around but nothing I'd call..." Then Manny was hit with another ghostly echo, something mimicking his ability or something that was responding to his use of it. "Well now that's promising." Smiling like that, Manny zoomed off to the distance.

* * *

While Manny was being left to his own devices Daniela was being led to another nugget, and one far shinier than the last at that.

"What is this thing?" What Daniela found was a vaguely pocket watch like device, except that instead of the face of a clock the symbol on the front of the thing was a red circle with a set of white spikes on the top and bottom, like the maw of a monster. "This thing was in the highest security part of the vault, which explains why it survived but what is it?" Dani sunk her energy into the device and retracted it, obtaining a idea of what it is and how it works. "A Omnitrix knockoff, only instead of sapient aliens it deals in wild animals." Dani held up the pocket watch to the light. "Sorry but weapons I can't use don't interest me one millimeter." Then Daniela looked around at the wreckage and saw that very few items survived the crash, further examination revealed that in most cases the condition of 'weapons I can't use' also applied. "Meat Head." This time Dani was out for blood. Flying over the wreckage of the facility a large section of the hull from her lab, and the technology therein, had been forcibly removed. "Vandal." As it so happened Dani had all of her equipment bugged for just such case of emergency. "Activate my locator beacon for everything on the six of the lab." Following that command the chip in her head directed Dani into the ruined city, more specifically into the subways. "Manny your prank has gone too far this time: Hand over my things and I'll only shove you inside of the containment unit for a week!" Dani produced several spheres of glowing ecto to serve as makeshift flash lights for her as she went into the subway, Dani spread said spheres throughout the area for better illumination.

She found her things, most of them taken apart already, others in the process of being taken apart.

"You are not Manny, which means this will work on you." Dani fired her ecto beam, but she couldn't tell if she hit it, some combination of black and Green that blended into both the blackness of the environment and the light of Dani's makeshift flashlights. Dani's ecto converter quickly sparked to life and suddenly the whole thing was zooming down the rails. "Oh lovely!" And Daniela was quick to chase off after the thief. Dani's quarry had one advantage over her, that being it's knowledge of these tunnels that she was chasing it through, but Dani had two, the ability to phase through solid objects and the tracking devices in her technology, but the target was seeking to rectify this lopsided situation. Within the span of a couple of seconds it had assembled together a gun out of items on board the little train car that it was riding on and fired energy beams at Daniela in a Gatling like pattern. "Oh please." Seemingly before she could deploy a response, Dani was hit with one of the energy beams and disappeared from sight.

Without fear of further harassment the creature set the train car on autopilot while it went back to work on completing whatever it was working on. The creature slid into what suspiciously looked liked a routing station that had been expanded into the building above and wallpapered with electronics.

"Is this your base of operations?" The creature went wide eyed as it turned around to face Dani. "Oh and I got a good look at you now too." As Dani Predicted, it was a black creature it's body lined with green circuit boards, but it was small and ape like almost like a goblin, and like a goblin it had big wide eyes with rectangle pupils similar to a goat. "So what are you suppose to be? A techno Goblin?" The creature tried to mount it's gun again but was stopped by Dani grabbing it by it's scruff and turning it intangible. "Either way, I bet you can't do anything if you can't touch your equipment." Dani pulled the Techno-goblin to her face and glared at it directly in it's blocky little eyes. "Speaking of which, I can tell that you've destroyed most of my belongings already: how exactly are you going to compensate me for that?" Suddenly, the entire base started to shake, the familiar ringing in her ears of a powerful sonic attack. "Meat Head."

* * *

Manny had followed the sound of the other echolocation user into the middle of the city, to his surprise he saw something rather familiar looking.

"What the? Did Dani bring one of those cockroaches along with us?" Spider Webbing, from building to building spider webbing had been stretched out like a spider building a web. "Well that's disappointing. I was hoping to run into the screamer. Ah well." Shrugging his shoulders Manny went to work. Amazing the kinds of things that get left lying around when the end of the world comes, for instance the massive fuel truck that someone had abandoned in front of a hole in the ground which Manny was now hoisting above the city, he then turned the truck intangible and used his Ghostly Wail to spread it all over the city. "Now, let's dust out the cob webs shall we?" Manny fired a single ectobeam out of his finger tip at the fuel covered webbing, setting the whole city ablaze. "Now now, where is the little..." Briefly ablaze that is. Windows all across the city were shattered as ultra high sound frequencies went to work suppressing the flames. Then, a single shot of webbing glued itself to the nearest sky scraper...

* * *

**Author's Note**:

rmarcano321: They are. I can't say that there isn't anyone I particularly dislike, it might seem that way with Skeletor I know based on the amount of abuse I put him through but that is that and this is this.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note**: The Juggernaut's going strong, but my enthusiasm for this story: not so much. I think I'll hold out a little bit longer though for now. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 14: The Chosen

The new creature was vaguely dog like in appearance, albeit a dog with six limbs. For the most part it was orange, with black stripes going down it's body, it's fur was long and spiky like a porcupine, the tip of it's long feline tail had spider like webbing coming out of it finally it's eyeless face had a long snout like a wolf, when you ignore the fact that it divides into four sections up and down and side to side. Overall Manny had no other words for it other than a spider wolf. And it was coming towards him, climbing along a rope that it made out of spider webbing until it was on the same level as the floating Manny. But what else is he to do during this time? Manny's echolocation has been giving him a whopper of a headache and he burned all of his webs.

"C'mon rover! Here boy lets go for a walk!" Manny stated patting his thigh's and speaking in the most obnoxious mocking voice that he cared to muster.

"Grr." 'Rover' was not amused.

Opening his flower like maw the creature loosed a massive sonic attack that wouldn't loose to the best of Manny's Ghostly Wail attacks... if he had a sore throat.

"Wow that was impressive." Manny stated with the most unimpressed face you'd ever seen, complete with using his pinky to drill out his ear canal before blowing the contents off of his finger. "But lemme give you a little advice."

By 'advice' what Manny most likely meant was 'ear bleeding howl' as his Ghostly Wail slammed headlong into the mutant, sent him bouncing along roof tops before smashing into a building with blood coming out of gill like slits on it's neck. Cue Dani, floating through the wall that the Spider Wolf had been pinned to, took one look at the six armed mutant before turning to the even more freakish individual responsible for this situation.

"And where have you been?" Dani asked as if she received some sort of violation that she wished to take up with the principle offender.

"I got distracted." Manny stated gesturing to the web spinning mutant. "How'd the look go?"

"No thanks to you by the way, but I picked this out of the wreckage of the space station that _you_ crashed into the planet!" Dani stated in a accusing tone of voice while she brought out the pocket watch type device she salvaged. "According to the information that I read it's a DNA alterer with a predisposition towards extremely vicious animals, roughly level nineteen on the technology scale." While Daniela was explaining all of this, the Spider Wolf's blood receded back into his gills and the broken bones knit themselves back together. "Sadly it's not something that we can use."

"Why not I've always wanted to turn into a dragon?" Manny stated as he leaned over and looked at the Spider Wolf behind Dani. "As amusing as that thought is I don't need you any more brain damaged then you already are. And why are you looking..." Dani received a glob of webbing to her face, not that it mattered much to her as she simply phase out and the webbing fell from her face.

"Well that's interesting." Manny had an amused look on his face as he watched his prickly prey run up the side of the building. "I should have hit him hard enough to break every bone in his body."

"Funnily enough I've found my own as well, so why don't you take this one and I'll take the other one." Saying that Dani went back into the building while Manny went looking for the spider. "Alright Thief, where are...?" Dani was interrupted by the sight of the Techno-goblin firing off a gatling device shooting off Green energy, and this time it's blows were connecting in spite of intangibility being in full effect. "Great..." Dani threw up a ecto barrier even under the barrage of blows from her opponent. "It's found the ecto-converter." As long as the enemy had the actual capacity to hurt her then she would have to switch her direction of attack, so thus Daniela phased back outside of the building. Naturally the Goblin looked around for his enemy, he even took the liberty of electrifying the bottom in case she came in up from below. It is with this in mind Dani had turned herself invisible, walked up directly in front of the goblin, and grabbed him with one of her arms.

"Fix-it! Fix-it! Fix-it!"

"That's my line!" Dani was still upset about her belongings being stolen and dismantled for this thing's little project. "How exactly are you planni-" Dani suddenly froze up, the goblin's body melting down and integrating with her cybernetics. "Er-Er-Er!" Just because her muscles were being turned against her did not mean that Dani could not act, after all the act of a ghost possessing another being was simply a matter of turning intangible and getting inside of them, in that regard she was already half way done. Dani's body turned intangible and entered into the goblin.

* * *

"Fix it!" A dark colored figure in a black coating, holding out to Fix It a watch like device, one of a pair. "NOW!" But there was nothing that he could do, it wasn't broken and he couldn't reprogram it to work for him.

"Fix-it! Fix-it!" The little techno goblin held it's hands up defensively and shook it's head left and right.

"Useless." Suddenly the man in black stood up, revealing a skull with a glowing green eye in it's right socket. "Fine then. Let's see if I can find something more useful from this piece of junk." Saying that the man in black gave the device a squeeze and suddenly several more... things came out of it and took shape beside Fix-It. "FFFIIIXXX!" And Fix-It passed out from the sheer terror of what was spawned.

* * *

Dani woke up from the hallucination panting, she looked down at her arm and to her surprised saw the green on black circuit board pattern of this 'Fix-it' in a arm shape.

"Oi you! I'm not a flat being co-leased I already got an obnoxious room mate!" Saying that Daniela began the process of trying to remove the black material, but it was more complicated than that, for it had seeped into her cybernetics and fused with them, nor was it content to let go. "Lovely."

Daniela looked at the technology around her as she began thinking about how to salvage her technology from this place. 'Fix-It' as it called itself appeared to be a hybrid of three separate species of aliens, most prominently a Galvanic Mechamorph, a techno-organic composite of single celled organisms and nanotechnology capable of dramatically augmenting Technology. Aside from that there were Planchaküles a goblin like a alien with the ability to rapidly disassemble and reassemble machines in various different configurations and also a Galvan a hyper intelligent race of ten inch high geniuses. In short it could take any machine, pull it apart, create something entirely different out of the parts, upgrade that to the pinnacle of technology and all under the guidance of a genius, whatever her brother wanted this thing to fix if it couldn't do it no one could.

Which led to the next point, Daniela hadn't seen her elder brother Junior in years but it hard's to forget a six foot tall skeleton with a demon eye especially when it use to be something you saw every day. Her mother did specifically mention that Junior had taken the Infi-map for a spin himself some time ago, leading her to wonder if this was the place it took him first, but it made her wonder why he zeroed in on the... bi-omnitrix was it called? No, this wasn't his first stop, and it wasn't his last either.

"More to that point, what is that Spider Mutt that Manny was chasing down?" While Dani thought that information was being uploaded into her grey box. "Wolf Spider, Arachnisimian, Vulpinmancer, Loboan hybrid. Tracker." Before she even realized it Daniela spat out that bit of information in a robotic computer like voice before the realization sat in with her. "Oi you little butt pain did you just hack my grey box!" Daniela located the nearest ax like object as she prepared to remove this _infection_ from her body. "HaURG!" Daniela's severed arm fell from her body and landed on the bottom of Fix-it's train car. Then of course the immortality kicked back in, as the arm, black alien matter and all, turned into mist and floated up to Dani's severed stump and remade her arm from the ground up. "Lovely." On that note Daniela observed her infection and wiggled her fingers experimentally as she tested how much control of the situation she had. Her arm was responding well but the fact that this Fix-It had the capacity to mess with her memory would be problematic. "Let's see just how good with technology you really are."

* * *

Credit where it's due, this thing was fast. The ability to sling webbing from building to building and swing around the ruins of the city like a wrecking ball made it spectacularly easy to get around, the ability to give it a occasional speed boost via it's sonic howl even more so, it even spread webbing between it's six limbs so that it could hang glide on the draft and get even more air time out of it. However Manny was faster, his maximum flight speed was 200mph and he could turn intangible or more often then not simply plow through the buildings in his way. Eventually the Wolf Spider was done running, having arrived at a stadium and was now howling into the middle of the play area.

"Now I wonder what that's about?" Manny flew over the stadium and looked down below, something huge, red and hairy was sleeping in the middle of the arena curled into a ball though it was now being roused to action by the blows to it's head it was receiving.

"Lemme tell yah something Little Doggy!" The thing rolled over revealing four huge muscular arms with claws sprouting between knuckles. "Asura does not like being woken up!" It's body was built like a dinosaur, a four armed dinosaur but still, chiefly huge and covered in muscle, but the muscle was covered in fur not scales, with four yellow eyes glowering through the mass of fur on it's face.

"Oh wow now that's what I'm talking about!" Manny shouted in excitement down at the monster who was in the field.

"Ruff!" The monster's eyes turned on the Wolf Spider who was in the stand. "Ruff! RUFF RUFF RUFF RUFF!"

"Grr." The monster slammed it's four arms into the ground and bounced itself up to Manny's eye level. "Lemme tell you something little ghost boy! Asura does not like people who bullies his little doggy!"

"That's funny, cause 'Little Ghost Boy' _loves_ stupid knuckle draggers like you!" Manny had this big wide grin on his face as he insulted the huge compilation of different kinds of strong but stupid aliens.

"Lemme tell you something..." Manny interrupted the next rant by concentrating a ecto grenade into existence inside his mouth followed up with firing it into the face of 'Asura' with enough force to send the stupid lug up into the air before crashing into the ground hard.

"Tell me something, am I the first person to think of interrupting one of your little rants? Don't yah think that you should skip straight to part to where we just punch each other?"

"...You're right little Ghost Boy!" Shouting that the giant calling itself Asura jumped to it's feet and pounded his fists into the ground. "Asura will show little Ghost Boy that Asura is the strongest of the Reaper's chosen!" Saying that the big stupid brute took off after Manny again.

* * *

**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Over 4000 words a week, and that's only because I take most of it off from writing. They can be. Definitely Manny's little fashion show with Skeletor and his cronies.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author Note**: Not much to say right now, fourth day into my premature winter vacation and... I honestly don't have much to say right now. Read, Review, Favorite, and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 15: Starting Over

The ground was shaking again, Manny must have found a new playmate. Dani paid no heed to it, luckily for her she remembered every detail of her technology and with the collective abilities of Fix-It she improved upon her stolen belongings greatly. She even had the little monster's suped up train car to go back to the lab with, additionally the crashed remains of the Plumbers space station was still there and she was definitely one to take advantage. With Fix-It's abilities she could even repair the super weapons that Manny destroyed when he randomly decided to dump the place on the planet's surface, always a silver lining it seems.

"Now than, what shall I build next?"

* * *

Asura, the giant massive brute that he was, easily leaped through the air tanking Manny's Ghostly Wail all the way down ending with all four arms slamming down on top of Manny. Not that Manny minded much. Compared to being dissolved and rebuilt near constantly by a slime every day being flattened by a dino-cat thing wasn't all that bad. No his problem was that thing thing wasn't taking any damaged in exchange and it was starting to annoy him a little, and on that note Manny came up with a truly trollish idea.

"Well if that's the case." Smirking knowingly Manny flew up, went intangible, entered the body of Asura, and took control over him. "Stop hitting yourself!" Asura in Manny's voice said as he promptly punched himself in the face. "Stop Hitting yourself!" Again another punch. "Stop Hitting yourself!" Followed up by a third strike. "Stop...!"

But three seemed to be enough, unable to expel Manny with sheer willpower the savage instead did exactly what Manny wanted, knocking himself to the ground and striking at his own chest repeatedly just trying to get at him. Eventually it worked and Manny stopped possessing the big stupid lug, though that didn't mean that he had left his body. Indeed there was this massive cavity inside commonly known as a stomach.

"Hmm. I'm in here again? I wonder if I'm going to develop a fetish for this kind of thing?" Dismissing his concerns a evil Smirk appeared on Manny's face. "Rather since you're too tough to attack from the outside, I'll just take this wonderful opportunity for some sabotage!"

Outside Asura was trying to figure out where Manny went, though that was the term used, in reality he was just smashing everything in sight like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

"Where'd you Go little ghost boy!?"

Then this peturbed look appeared on Asura's face, followed by his cheeks bloating, until finally he belched green energy in a Ghostly Wail. But it wasn't just coming out of his mouth, every orifice of Asura's body had vast amounts of green energy coming out of them, and his entire body was vibrating from the effects of Ghostly Wail being fired from inside of his body. Then Asura inflated, and for that brief few moments before the pop he looked like a great big balloon. But pop he did, in a explosion that leveled several city blocks and reduced Asura himself into bloody spatter across the floor of his own crater.

"Welp that takes care of that." Manny was clapping the gore off of his hands like he had just done a job extremely well, while he did not notice the gore that was gathering beneath his feet. "Now than, where did Doggy go?" Was the last thing that Manny spoke before receiving a straight punch to the back of the head. The blow left Manny a few precious moments of air time to figure out exactly what happened and only one conclusion came to mind. "He's imm-" Manny landed hard into the space station he had crashed into the earth. Sitting up he spat out a piece of metal that had gotten into his mouth from landing face first before taking the liberty of straightening out his head. "He's immortal too?" While wondering how exactly that happened Manny heard the sounds of sirens blaring. "Did I land on the vault where Dani keeps her diary? For once I wasn't even trying to break in." While wondering about that Manny turned to face a screen which stated 'Sub Energy containment field compromised.'

The explosion could be seen from space, a gigantic massive vortex of pure energy that reached into the atmosphere and turning the ruins of a city into a crater. Dani just saw the energy field in time to turn in intangible and fly away at full speed, even then the blast ended up nipping at her feet and she ended up riding it the rest of the way out bouncing along the ground several times in the end before grinding to a halt.

"Meat head."

_This_ time Dani was out for blood! Turning around Dani realized that _everything_ was destroyed, the only sign that anything had been there at all was the worn 'Welcome to Bell Wood' sign which then fell over to the side, not that Dani caught any of this between her scathing rage that was bubbling to the surface. Still Dani was someone who got angry in a calm rational manner, carefully thinking about in what ways she would do to the people responsible. It had been a truly long time since Manny had gotten this reaction out of her, largely because he spent a long time trying and she decided to ignore him for the sake of keeping him from getting what he wanted like some spoiled child. But now though? Now Dani had stopped caring, she wanted blood. Such thoughts were running through her mind like 'what if the infi-map was destroyed in the explosion' and 'What are we going to do to get back home?' That said Dani had not gone insane, she knew that she didn't stand a chance in a fair fight, so she resolved to simply not fight fair.

It took a while before Manny regained consciousness, having to wait until his body rebuilt itself molecule by molecule would have that effect on people, after that it took some time before he could see and hear again. Still wasn't going anywhere by the way. It gave him a great view of the ghost shield that appeared above the crater either way, so he wouldn't be using his ghostly abilities any time soon.

"Hmm. I wonder what Dani is so upset about? I don't remember doing anything lately to antagonize her more than usual." Key words being 'more than usual' and 'lately.' Either way Manny did regenerate and return to his feet. Nothing about the Ghost Shield keeps Manny from simply walking through it in Human form, which meant only one thing. "Hey sis! Where are yah!?" That is his sister, the only person he knows that knows how to build one of these things, is going to ambush him inside of the shield. "Marco!"

"Polo." A cold hearted declaration, one that left no room for negotiation, simply a statement of absolute fact. Turning around Manny saw Dani standing behind him, her right arm transformed into a mass of black flesh patterned with circuitry, several long claw like appendages growing out from her finger nails long as daggers. She was in her living form, wings of a angel on the back drop and hair as black as night behind those, staring Manny down with a blood red glare that evoked imagery of their mother.

"My, what is all of this about sister?" Manny maintained his usual grin indicating that nothing was wrong with this situation for him.

"What is wrong? Look around." Dani twirled on the spot drawing attention to the area around her. "Do you see my portable lab? Can you find any trace of our belongings? No, of course you can't. You destroyed all of them." Dani's fingers were trembling now, with sheer, unadulterated, outrage. "You destroyed, eight, long, years of preparations!" Oh those were the least of his crimes. "You destroyed our only way back home!" The contraption that was built from Dani's arm began to expand and take on new shapes, it's mass growing from Daniela's immortality. "And for that, I will make you suffer!"

"SNff!" Manny could only snort at that statement. "You? Make me suffer? And here I was thinking this day was gonna be boring!"

Dani had stacked the odds in her favor. So long as the ghost shield was active then Manny couldn't use the ghostly abilities that he relies on to fight, the one time contents of the crater were either scattered around in a huge perimeter or utterly vaporized leaving nothing for Manny to leverage with his vast brute strength. Did any of that mean he was defenseless? Hell no, he had vast brute strength and the insanity to get creative with it. But Dani had further stacked the odds in her favor, The Fix-It who had made himself a part of her was feeding off of her immortality and was vastly improving upon the weapons designs in Daniela's head using galvan instincts and Mechamorph physiology to vastly improve upon it in many ways. Does this meant that she was going to win this? Hell no. Both of them are immortal, un-kill-able halfa's with chips on their shoulders and augmentations of questionable validity strewn throughout their bodies, Dani might have had more complex abilities but Manny knew how to use his very well. On that note, their fight had begun. Daniela, as she is rare to do, seized the initiative, her arm transformed and produced an oversize Gatling type grenade launcher and fired it's projectiles at Manny. These weren't just normal grenades, they were shot forward riding on the heads of laser beams and when they detonate they released powdered anti matter into the surrounding area which crackles with large explosions all over Manny's body blowing holes in his body and destroying him on a molecular level.

"Even your ludicrous durability can't stand up to Anti-matter being thrown in your face." Dani stated as she cocked her weapon to fire again. "Now why don't you-" Manny's hand was already over Dani's face, he had grabbed her before he was even done regenerating and slammed her head first into the ground before running with her like that through numerous different buildings.

"You don't think you're the only one angry are you?" Manny does not like getting yelled at, does not enjoyed being insulted, and does not like being blamed for doing things that he did not do, but the excuse to cut loose every once in a while? _That_ he just loved. Well not quite cut loose... "If you thought restraining me was going to let you use me as a punching bag for your frustrations sister..." Manny delivered a kick to Dani's mid section just as her head was growing back, sending her flying through the air in the process. "...then that goes two ways!"

Dani had wings, and she was in the air already so she had another advantage going for her. Manny had zero damns to spare about her advantages, in a instant his jump had closed the distance between them and slammed his fist into Dani's mid section with enough force to send her flying again. Dani looked behind her and saw the ghost shield rapidly approaching her back, the realization donning on her.

"Trying to take this battle out of the Ghost Shield eh?" Dani manufactured grappling cables with Fix-It and anchored herself to the ground. Manny's response was the close the distance again and deliver a drop kick to Dani face planting her, not only that but he then followed up with another kick directly to her face. Then said blow was followed up with Manny jumping behind her, delivering a third strike sending Daniela flying back into the city before he chased after her. "I can keep this up all day sis." Manny stated as he playfully tossed an ecto grenade up in the air. "In fact I even feel inclined to, but sense you don't seem interested in fighting back."

"Mostly I'm just venting my rage at you blowing everything up again!" Dani snapped her patience worn thin.

"Again I didn't do it." Manny stated making his stance on the situation clear.

"You were in the epicenter of the blast!" Dani snapped back accusingly.

"Yeah I was there, cause that Asura guy chucked me there into the main reactor for the satellite." Manny countered defensively.

"A 'guy' you doubtlessly antagonized into in fighting you! And chucked into a satellite that you dropped onto the blasted planet!" Dani countered increasingly annoyed.

"And who parked our room full of all of our stuff right next to a satellite that you have claimed repeatedly was full of broken and malfunctioning things!?" Manny countered one of his few rare intelligent insults spitting out.

"You are the one who crashed it! And you Blew. It. Up!" Dani snapped back.

"Are you going to fight me all night or are you going to help find our belongings!"

The answer was the first of the two. It was a long night filled with pointless violence and vulgar insults between them before it eventually transitioned into the latter. Finding the wreckage of the lab was easy, for Dani anyway. Luckily what was irreplaceable was also indestructible, unfortunately the Infi-map remained uncooperative as ever, an indication that they were where they were ought to be. That left figuring out what they were suppose to do, and few clues with which to work.

"Okay so it's a super weapon, fantastic how many bullets does it have?" Manny asked looking down at the pocket watch device sat between them.

"Ten different kinds near as I can tell." Dani replied scratching her chin. "And from what I can tell none of them can really take the army that we're gonna be up against."

"So where do we find bigger and badder?" Manny asked shrugging his shoulders obviously.

"Father's journal spoke of only one suitable place: Monster Island."

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**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Me too. News to me. Yes, yes I am.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note**: So not writing as well as I was a little while ago, truth be told I'm getting a little sick of this fic so I'm gonna try to take a break from it for a while. Either way, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 16: Island of Monsters

The reconstruction of the porta lab was completed, Daniela was glaring down at the Infi-map that was floating in a containment tube suspiciously, refusing to open and bare it's secrets nor lend it's assistance. Sighing out her dissatisfaction Dani got to work. Tracking down the location of the so-called Site Omega the pair arrived on the island and began their investigation. Essentially, every time something got dipped in some illicit chemical, exposed to radioactive waste, was the key subject in someone's mad experiment, or some how or another woke up after countless eons being asleep and survived, all typically growing to little under two hundred feet tall in the process, then it would be sent here. Then HIM happened, and with it the fall of modern civilization. As such the monster zoo no longer had any keepers around and it showed: military attack vehicles, giant robots and other major facilities had been torn up and made into the chew toys of various creatures. The majority of the cells/enclosures were empty, torn open both something trying to get in and something trying to get out others had been opened, a attempt to weaponize once the worst case scenario had come and gone. The super volcano that had originally formed the island chain had already erupted, expanding the size of the island in the process to several times it's original size. Thanks to a fair bit of luck though most of the facilities were still here.

"OH HO HO HO! This looks like it's gonna be a fun day!" Manny stated looking down at the island, the highlights included a giant two legged Iguana, a huge hornet like creature and a huge two tusked yeti lizard thing.

"Try to wait until after I'm done recording the islands genetic database into the Nemetrix before you destroy the island okay?" Dani asked cocking a suspicious brow at her brother.

"No promises." Saying that Manny flew off to the island and landed with a loud crash on top of the mutant Iguana rudely waking it up.

Letting out a sigh Dani set to work, finding the bunker where the data that she was looking for was Dani plugged her device into the computer using an adapter she had made. The next several hours had Dani impatiently pacing back and forth inside of the bunker, to the credit of the architects not only had it survived the monsters being kept here being allowed to roam free and a volcanic eruption, but it also survived Manny who was rampaging outside loosing his ghostly wails, ecto bombs, 'kame hame' blasts, beam spam and his own improvised variant of luchadore style wrestling. Once they found something that they can get to actually use this thing then they would be able to go through them one by one and figure out which ones best suited their purposes.

"Course, I can start narrowing down that list..." As Daniela muttered that she opened up the barely functional security camera's and got a look at the fighting going on outside.

Manny was slammed into a cliff side with enough force to drive him deep inside of a newly formed crack. The Iguana followed up it's shove with a mass of green radioactive breath of fire aimed directly into the crack Manny had found himself in.

"Godzilla. The only surviving offspring of a heavily mutated iguana originally from the Polynesian coastline but settled in New York Harbor due to overwhelming circumstances. Breathes radioactive fire, digs through solid rock at an alarming rate, heals incredibly fast, surprisingly intelligent. Sounds like a keeper."

Inside of the layer of molten radioactive rock Manny smiled. Taking a deep breath the ghost boy let loose a ghostly wail blowing away the molten rock and slamming them into Godzilla at the speed of sound. The giant lizard responded by slamming his claws down and smacking the debris out of his way as he fired off another flame breath at Manny. However the Fire exploded, having slammed head on into giant mass of ice that had suddenly formed around Manny. The culprit responsible made it's presence known up the mountain, a certain mammoth like draconic monster easily outclassing the dragon like Godzilla in terms of sheer size and weight. Still the two gargantuan creatures roared at each other for getting in one another's way.

"Bewilderbeast. The largest of the ancient dragons ever discovered, it creates it's den using it's powerful ice breath attacks and makes a army out of smaller creatures using ultrasound produced by vibrating the massive quills on it's back. Hmm." A huge monster with crowd control abilities, come to think of it they haven't had a good look at the creatures that were already logged in the Nemetrix yet either. "I wonder if it's possible to use more than one of them at a time?" Daniela had the ability to multiply herself, it was entirely possible that there is a alien species out there with the ability to do the same thing, and if each of them have their own fully functional and independant Nemetrix... "Oh that is going to be fun. I almost regret stuffing this thing full of monster DNA now." Dani stated as she saw the rumble continue.

The Bewilderbeast charged down the cliff side trying to gorge Manny on one of his tusks, Manny dodged to the side and grabbed hold of the tusk, followed up by maneuvering and leveraging his weight to flip the Bewilderbeast on it's back and land on top of Godzilla. Finally a loud buzzing noise echoed out as Manny looked up to see a giant mutant amalgamation of insects floating above his head, drooling a substance that smoked as it leaked against it's exo-skeleton and stared Manny down hungrily.

"Well ain't this my lucky day? A bug that needs swatting." Manny stated with a big grin having formed on his face.

"Skeetera. A heavily mutated Mosquito native to the Florida everglades with the ability to assimilate the abilities of other mutants by drinking their blood, and combining their abilities into devastating combinations. So of course they brought it to an island full of mutants." Ignoring the stupidity of the people who once ran this place, this specimen has potential, provided that it managed to pass down the additional mutations that it accumulated into her offspring. While Daniela was thinking about that she got to watch as her idiot brother loaded a ecto grenade into his mouth and fired it via ghostly wail directly into his opponent resulting in a blow that sent the poor thing flying. "Maybe not." While Dani was thinking about all of this the computer dinged, indicating the download was done, similarly Dani checked through the dial of the device and found several new specimens had been added to it's database. "Well I suppose it's irrelevant now." Saying that Dani disconnected her adapter and took a look through some of the creatures that they had just downloaded into their secret weapon and noted the long list of them. "That's a long line, I'll need to have them organized a bit or this'll be useless in a fight." Dani commented looking down at the watch like device they had come here for the purpose of building up the power of. "Now that I think about it... does this have the capacity to do something like that? I mean from what I understand this thing only use to have ten forms in it." Dani looked down at the arm that Fix-it had fused into, and with that she could get to work.

While Dani worked to reprogram her little project Godzilla and the Bewilderbeast got back to their feet, and observed the broken body of Skeetera before their attention turned to Manny. The two paid each other a side glance, Godzilla held out one of his tiny little arms to the Bewilderbeast and he responded with a fist bump of his own.

"Well now y'all are making things interesting." Manny stated his face warped with a grin. It was at that moment that the sky turned dark, all of the combatants looked up to the sky to see a dark mass had appeared above their heads, before blinding lights suddenly came down on their heads. "Do yah mind? We're in the middle of something!?" Manny shouted to deaf ears. Appendages came out of the UFO and grabbed both Godzilla and the Bewilderbeast by their torso's before lifting the struggling monsters into the air. "Hey those are my monsters!" Manny shouted letting out the most indignant snarl he ever had.

Saying that Manny flew up to the two monsters and wound up a massive ecto ray attack. Godzilla and his spiky associate took one look at each other as if trying to decide if they wanted to stay put and continue dealing with this pest or go with this thing. Then the thought occurred to them that going with the thing trying to kidnap them and being followed by the pest was the absolute worst case scenario so they both acted. The Bewilderbeast blasted the joints of the mechanical arms with his ice freezing them solid and stopping them dead, Godzilla followed that up with his radioactive fire breath getting a solid blow in and shattering the ice, Manny got an idea of what they were doing and so followed that up with another Wail Propelled Grenade and dealing a solid dent on the arm. The three of them repeated that attack several times weakening the integrity of the arm until it started to let out a loud creak. Then with a loud snap Godzilla was broken free of his arm, though he interrupted his free fall by grabbing hold of the Bewilderbeast by his back legs and climbed up to the joint connecting the grabber to the main body.

"What's wrong with you anyway? You're a alien space ship! Where's the transporter Beam? Where's the Tractor beam! I want to see a tractor fired at me now!" Shouting that Manny flew up to the main body of the UFO and began firing off his Ghostly Wail at it, the UFO responded by releasing a swarm of robots to fight back, short little things they were heads on a hover module with two limbs, one of which appeared to be a laser blaster of some kind.

"Mr. Zurkon has come to kill you!" Saying that the little droids went on the war path firing off various energy beams at Manny who in turn threw up ecto barriers to deflect their beams into one another.

"As much as the thought of killing you all one by one sounds like fun..." Manny's mouth glowed as he wound up another ecto grenade and fired with a ghostly wail. The attack triggered as series of explosions as each of the anti-matter cores inside of each Mr. Zurkon went off at once smashing into the side of the giant UFO with a loud boom. However while Manny was dealing with the ones in front of him the rest had sneaked up behind him, and knowing that attacking him normally wasn't working for them...

"Mr. Zurkon deploying stasis beam!" Deployed a little after market modification that made Manny freeze up all stiff, suspended in what seemed to be time itself. With the major threat subdued the UFO went to work trying to capture it's intended targets, Godzilla's claws trying to break the arm off of the UFO with the Bewilderbeast's help.

"Why can't Mr. Zurkon kill the ugly monsters?" Leveling that complaint the miniature death machines went to work, not that stun rifles was much good against a creature with a armored hide like a dragon, instead the Zurkon's resorted to a suicide charge to leave the two monsters unconscious before arms worked to put all three prisoners into the UFO.

"Lovely." Dani watched the exchange from below and was not amused by the results. Manny's attack had done some heavy damage and once he and the monsters were incapacitated they began effecting repairs. The island was picked over for any trace of metal, most of which being broken parts from the UFO itself, before it moved on. Good news was that the lab hadn't been taken, the better news was that that thing had to stay on Earth while it enacted it's repairs, the bad news was Dani now had to go find a way onto that thing before it left with her brother.

"This day just keeps getting better and better!" Snarling with her dissatisfaction the Halfa went to work to get her brother back.

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**Review Section**: True. Good to know. Not as bad as you think, without anyone to keep them there most of the monsters already left a long time ago.


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note**: Sorry I don't have anything to say today, I'm already behind. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 17: The Monster Planet

Repairs on the UFO were progressing rapidly, the so-called 'minions' were making use of the wreckage that had been blown off of the ship together with what they were taking from various cities they plundered to get the raw materials. Entire buildings had been ripped out whole sale, the concrete and mortar shaken off exposing metal like steel below which was then being melted down and reprocessed with other metals. The UFO also continued it's primary mission: the collection of organic life, fortunately for it the excessive radiation from world wide nuclear bombing and chemicals from various suspect places left it with no shortage of specimens to snatch. Yet it wasn't just the giants the UFO collected either, the Zurkon drones had been released in mass equipped with some kind of dimensional vacuum cleaner that they used to suck up cats, small dogs, very large rats and insects, anything about a foot long. Still the hole stuck around long enough for Daniela to move the cloaked lab into place inside and figure out where her idiot brother was being kept in all of this.

"Computer, bring up the list of monster DNA located inside of the Nemetrix." Dani decided to take advantage of the situation. The UFO gave no shortage of creatures that she could potentially use to make use of the Nemetrix but it required a more user friendly interface. Her problem was that the potential transformations seemed to number in the hundreds. "Break the specimens down by biomes: Land, Sea, and Air." The singular massive list disappeared, replaced by three smaller lists. "Sub divide according to abilities: close quarters, long range, support and other." The three lists disappeared again, each in turn replaced by four smaller lists for a total of twelve. "List off specimens from smallest to largest." The Lists disappeared and reappeared again, only instead of being replaced with more lists the name of each monster had been given a size index to show how they matched up. "The smallest specimen is easily the size of a Mastiff." A breed of dog of great size, which together with the lab equipment Dani had and Manny's already huge bulk would make actually keeping it in the lab rather difficult. "That will make things difficult." Dani suddenly realized the very real need to grab one of the so-called critters that the UFO had snatched up in order to actually use this thing. "Divide the list in tens." Dani stated as she picked up the device she had been working on and had Fix-It reorganize it's contents into something quite a bit more manageable. "Well I guess I'm going to be prepared as I can be." Dani stated as she attached the device to the belt on her hip.

Fortunately these stupid machines didn't seem to have the capacity to identify ghosts, or if they did they didn't have the ability to detect her presence. Now when she started tampering with their systems on the other hand...

"Okay which one of you can I convince to help me?" Dani asked as she looked at the various animals gathered before her.

Any trace of the animals that humanity had spent so long and hard trying to domesticate was long gone, squashed under a tide of mutagenic chemicals, radiation and good old fashion survival of the fittest. The descendants of non-domesticated animals weren't much better, giant rats, cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, hornets and other nasties that she had no interest in.

"Okay so that's a bust." Dani muttered as she rubbed her temples and debated her next course of action in dealing with these things. If she didn't have the raw resources that the Nemetrix will provide her then she could expect the fight of her life, which also emphasized the need to find her brother in all of this madness as well. "Ugh. It's a good thing I had the idiot micro chipped." Saying that Dani pulled out her personal computer and brought up the screen that would theoretically bring her to her brother and followed the radar like information to it's conclusion. "Well." The conclusion in question had Dani finding the tracking chip lodged in a section of floor in the rebuilt section of the ship. "Oh lovely. It fell out when they were blasting Manny." Dani stated smacking herself in her face. "Plan B then." Dani produced several clones of herself and spread them through out the ship, intangibility and invisibility has worked well for her thus far and her in built ghost sense would tell them when Manny was close to one of them. It also gave Dani the chance to run some impromptu sabotage on the ship and do some proper recon.

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"Why did they even bother to snatch up the critters?" Dani asked scratching her chin. "I at first thought that the little ones would be fed to the big ones, but looking at this that isn't going to be the case." Dani noted having found what could best be summarized as a ice cavern hallway.

Course the UFO hadn't done something as foolish as to tear a chunk of ice out of somewhere, shape it into a hallway, and integrate it into the middle of itself, that was far too impractical: these were cryo-chambers, for 200 ft plus monsters. Dani could see Godzilla and the Bewilderbeast, long since shoved into their own chambers and frozen solid mid protest. The possibility that Manny was in here, reduced to a ice sculpture like these two, was quite high, but she wouldn't be able to use her ghost sense to find him since it was already cold enough that she could see her breath.

"Great, now I need to check every square meter of this place just to find one idiot." It was much worst than Dani realized, the possibility dawning on her that Manny could be at the back of a chamber that if the size of the Bewilderbeast was any indication had to be at least eighty feet back, fifty feet wide, and two hundred tall for a total of over eighty thousand cubic feet per chamber, and she still didn't know how many chambers there were in total, perhaps the real question she should have been asking herself is why there weren't any new arrivals being added.

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"Oh dear." While her counterpart searched cryo chambers another Dani had located the navigation central computer that presumably kept this entire thing on course.

To where though was the question. Having completed repairs and gathered a bountiful harvest of monsters and rodents it was now carrying it's bounty through the stars at several times the speed of light. According to this navigation computer they were already half way through the galaxy and there was no sign of slowing down any time soon. True there were plenty of planets with creatures that met with this Ephemeris contraption's criteria but Earth's harvest had been bountiful, and many of these planets species had already been collected. Though that again brought up the question of where they were going, how long this thing had been active to accomplish it's goals, who built it and what they hoped to accomplish by doing so.

"On the bright side, if this thing is intent on returning back to earth to continue it's harvest then we can just hitch hike a ride back to Earth." Content with that Dani's next priority was sabotage, delaying the return to Earth wouldn't hurt, and it would make it easier to free Manny when she decided to act. "Now than. The only weapons really effective against him were those stasis beams, so where are they at?"

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The Zurkon Droids were kept in drop pods on the underside of the ship, deployed specifically to swarm and incapacitate any enemy that Ephemeris couldn't subdue with it's arms. However they had not been made by Ephemeris but rather were the creations of a third party, Gadgetron they called themselves.

"Interesting, so you guys defend whoever 'hatches' you regardless of loyalties." Fix-It was put to work once more, the capsules containing undeployed Zurkon's was soon put through hefty modifications. "It seems that the majority of the enemy consists of cybernetics so let's arm them with that."

Rail Gun's were weapons that made use of a magnetic field to accelerate a projectile to little over three kilometers per second, the projectiles were designed to shatter inside of the body of the enemy destroying circuit boards and armor and the magnetic field they carried with them would wreak havoc on the enemies internal systems frying circuitry and destroying power cells. The Vac-u's, originally designed for scooping the critters in mass, had been made into ammo cases for a massive number of projectiles. Aside from that Dani had Fix-It's galvan genius and access to Mechamorph technology to augment the systems of of the droids to their utmost limit.

"Mr. Zurkon is ready to kill for you." The omnicidal droid that Dani had been working on fluttered happily to her side, she would have to see how many of them she could salvage from this place.

"If any of the other Zurkon's become active without my say so, destroy them immediately. If any one who isn't me comes in here shoot them at once." Dani instructed and omnicidal droid gave a gleeful nod in response.

When Ephemeris did arrive at it's destination, it's masters would be greeted by a surprise the likes of which they could not have anticipated, nor have any desire to do: nightmares after all were extremely unpleasant.

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True to Dani's deductions Ephemeris had landed on a alien planet, according to Dani's information this Magnus was three in half times Earth's gravity, if she and Manny weren't already so ridiculously tough then they wouldn't be able to survive on this massive hunk of rock let alone fight. Ephemeris gave a description of it's catch to it's masters and they responded appropriately directing the machine to deposit it's harvest into something that resembled their natural habitats before docking to recharge.

"Great, I'm going to have neck cramps for weeks." Manny stated as he rubbed the back of his neck, his cellmate had been released and he with it, course the robots never realized he had the ability to phase through their non-stasis restraints, why none of them made use of them was beyond him. So he just got out hoping to stretch his legs and deal with the neck pains they had given him and what does he learn? This wasn't even the planet he was on anymore. Not that he had anything against this scenario, one place to rampage was as good as the next, but knowing where he and his sister are is better then not. So Manny turned to his cell mate for ideas. "What you wanna do?"

"Grr." Godzilla for his part looked like he wanted nothing to do with Manny and it showed in the lizard's blatant annoyance. For good reason too considering Manny's unprovoked attack on the modern day dragon's person, thus Godzilla took the opportunity of being dropped next to the ocean to leave the the halfa child be. "So be it." Manny saw a city and flew over looking for someone who knew where he was. "Hello! Anyway there!?"

Good news was, yes there were people there. Bad news was they were not talking anytime soon, after all even Manny's prowess with torture wasn't applicable to dead bodies. Various different races if their body types were any indication, though it could just be that they were broken beyond recognition, the fact that they had been skinned alive were a contributing factor to Manny's confusion.

"Well someone knows how to have a good time." Manny stated smirking knowingly and all thoughts of looking for Dani had been pushed to the back of his mind.

The ones responsible for the skinning also took notice of Manny, a fresh crop of prey had been released near here so naturally the young bloods had taken the liberty of stocking up when they saw this burly young man. It was rare that Ephemeris brought sapients to Magnus, usually that was something that they had to do themselves. The Drone was difficult for them to manage, but letting it run on automatic also provided a good result as it brought so much prey to the planet. Even if they had hunted one species to extinction the drone would usually just go back and get more. So for now it was best to watch and wait.

"Yeah know if you don't come out I'm gonna have to go looking for you!" Manny shouted as he looked around.

Manny went through two transformations, first turning into his ghost form and followed by growing two heads and four arms before he set to work. From palms beams of ecto green blew off chunks of the nearby buildings, from his mouth's a bright green light leaked out and were fired out in artillery strikes knocking down buildings around him. That got their attention.

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"Ah yes. Good old Manny." The explosions continued to go off in the ruined city, the green light showing who was clearly responsible for the attacks. "Subtle as a garbage truck on nitro." If Daniela wasn't busy pulling herself back together she would be going after him already, but not being at full power didn't mean that Dani could do nothing. And so towards that end produced another clone. "You go find Manny and see what mess he's created now." The First Dani stated.

"And you go find the rest of us and pull ourselves together." Both Dani's nodded their heads in agreement.

"Take some of the Zurkon drones with you, the enemy might not be cybernetic but I bet rail guns sting all the same." The First Dani stated aware of how weak they were with so many of them running around.

"No argument here but hurry up and pull ourselves together, the fewer of us there are the stronger we get." The Second Dani stated before she flew off.

Invisibility and flight served Dani well, as she watched the aliens who were stalking her brother dodge his ecto blasts, they in turn returned fire with shoulder mounted plasma blasters and energy disks.

"Yautja?" Dani and Manny were actually told bed time stories of the Yautja, more commonly known as Predators, by her Mother.

They're a race of aliens who travel the galaxy hunting worthy prey, something that they apparently considered her to be: she had the Yautja weapons to prove it. Each one of them were built like NFL linebackers, huge and muscular, and dressed like tribal warriors with bare chests and wearing the skins of animals/what she hoped was animals. Neither of this did anything to disguise the advance weaponry they carried, on the contrary the contrast made the plasma casters, stealth cloaks, floating death disks, wrist computers, combat sticks and surgically implanted retractable claws even more pronounce.

"Hmm." Dani looked up to Ephemeris and back down to the deceptively advanced alien thugs. "It's within the realm of possibility."

Is what Dani's mouth was saying but part of her still doubted the Yautja's capacity for technology. One possibility is that they stole everything they have from other species but that at least would imply some impressive engineering prowess to reverse engineer and maintain such tech. She also had to consider that they weren't responsible for Ephemeris either, she can't think of a reason why they would build in a function to snatch up critters.

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**Review Section**:

rmarcano321: Eh. I love a good story with some well written characters. So obviously I will have nothing to do with the reboot or it's sequels.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note**: And any reason I had to continue writing this story have ended, so I will continue my once a week publishing until I run out of chapters. This is the first of Five, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy.

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Chapter 18: The Hunters and Hunted

"Bang!" An ecto beam was loosed from the tip of Manny's finger gun and blasted off a chunk of one of the buildings that he enemies were shooting from. "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Followed quickly thereafter by three more shots demolishing the roofs of more buildings. Having figured out that Manny out classed them at range three of the Yautja had moved in closer and were now at a suitable distance to begin close quarters combat. "Well now yeah making things interesting!" The three Yautja charged, surgically implanted claws and arm blades drawn and began slashing at Manny. Manny's response was to tank all of the hits with his body getting the often serrated blades lodged inside of his flesh in the process. Naturally the Yautja tried to pull the blades out, and when they failed a look of 'oh crud' could be seen in their eyes as they saw the smile on Manny's face. "Let's go for a spin!"

Manny went from Zero to Two Hundred in an instant and stopped just as fast, ten miles above the surface of the planet. Then with the same force that Manny used to take off through the air he began spinning around at an enormous, alarming rate. The three Yautja came to understand what it's like to be put into a centrifuge as their blades slowly parted from Manny's body, before that it they were sent flying through the air. Dani watched as the three alien hunters were splattered across the ground, walking up to one she plucked the arm computer from his broken body, a little damaged but nothing that couldn't be fixed with some TLC.

"Fix-It I got something for you." Dani didn't know if the little Techno-goblin could hear her but it seemed quite receptive to when she put the damaged arm computer on her own limb, assimilating the device and upgrading it with superior Galvan technology while Dani's energies entered, bonded with it and repaired it. "Now than, where to next?" The Yautja's ship was located some distance away, if what she knew about the alien hunters were true then that meant it was full of DNA samples from fearsome monsters, sadly though this device didn't make mention of where their ship is actually located at. "Lovely." Dani turned invisible as she spotted a Yautja limp out of the ruins of the city, he snapped a small rod in half and jammed the crystal like pointy ends into himself. After he stopped screaming his body had been patched up and he walked away now that he was healed up. "That'll work."

Contrary to Daniela's expectations, the place that the Alien arrived at after several minuets of walking was what looked like a heavily fortified bunker, same make as the city so it wasn't his ship.

"Little Knife was it?" It was a Tharpod, a vaguely turtle like alien, from what Dani's information had told her it was rather unusual for Yautja to work with Non Yautja. This one in particular was extremely old, a fact accentuated by the crude glasses it was wearing and mobility chair he was sitting on. "I saw earlier, your seniors were wiped out by the creature that arrived here on Ephemeris." The video footage of Manny turning the Yautja into paste played, 'Little Knife' was not amused. "Would you like me to send the footage to your people? Either they will send more Hunters to hunt this fellow or Warriors to eliminate them as a threat."

"'_send the footage_'" The Tharpod's distorted voice echoed out of Little Knife's mask.

"Done, in the mean time I'll activate the locator beacons so that you can find your comrades remains." With that the Tharpod tapped a few keys on a keyboard and brought up a radar like screen. "Oh good one of them seems to have landed right on top of us." Little Knife spun around claws in his left arm drawn and aimed directly at Dani's invisible head.

"Now I know what you want to do." Dani turned visible with a finger gun pressed underneath her chin and fired the ecto beam directly into her head. Much like the bodies of the Yautja Manny had splattered Daniela's brains went all over the back wall of the facility. Confused Little Knife simply moved to cut Dani's arm free of the computer but to his surprise saw her fallen form getting back up, the splattered brain matter turning to smoke before rejoining her body and remaking her head. Little Knife jumped back and readied his own plasma caster to do what he hoped would be more lasting damage against Daniela. "And what exactly do you think that will do?" Asking that Daniela turned her attention to the Tharpod. "I didn't know that Yautja had reactions to other Races aside from parting their heads and most of their spines from their bodies."

"Not true they're also known for flaying their foes alive and hanging them where their comrades can find them. But yes these are unique circumstances." The Tharpod stated steepling his fingers. "My race makes for poor prey, but excellent engineers who were in the midst of a bit of a problem." The Tharpod gestured to the huge space ship sized UFO that was parked nearby. "One that's typically two hundred feet long. There have been others though usually what they lack in size they make up for in powers and psychotic tendencies. The Yautja while excellent hunters are oft poor engineers with only a crude understanding of their technology. Our partnership has been... mutually beneficial thus far."

"Where did that thing come from anyway?" Daniela asked looking up at the screen depicting Ephemeris.

"One of our people built it, under the influence of those." Daniela looked around the laboratory: critters like the ones she saw aboard the Ephemeris. Some looked like birds, others oversize squirrels, a few were really big slugs.

"Birds made you people build that thing?" The Halfa's skepticism was clear.

"They call themselves Loki." The Tharpod turned around in his chair and opened a diagram. "Disembodied energy beings who in order to survive outside of their home world must take on host bodies." Then the turtle man gestured to the cages where the creatures inside were projecting sympathetic eyes. "Small ones, though they attempted to manipulate us into building technology for them that could let them take on stronger forms for their own. Mostly we keep them around to do what they did before: they telepathically dump ideas into our heads, and we decide which ones we utilize. In exchange they are allowed to take on some host bodies, though they still attempt to subvert our control."

"I take it their attempts have failed then." Daniela stated noticing a distinct lack of giant monsters on the Loki's part. "Not for a lack of trying." The Tharpod stated pointing in the air with his finger. "Even if there was no one to stop them, the project had a massive and fundamental flaw to it."

"A sapient mind cannot handle the pure savagery of such creatures, nor can their savage brain process a fully sapient mind resulting in rampant brain damage to the subject." Daniela stated legitimately impressing the Tharpod Scientist while the Yautja just looked confused by her talk. "I've run into a similar problem." Daniela explained as she floated over to the Tharpod's console. "To help solve that problem, I require the use of a creature with the ability to heal damaged brain tissues, but it can wait." Daniela pulled over the screen that showed Manny still going after the Yautja in the city. "That is my brother, and he is every bit as difficult as I am to kill. What do you think the implications are going to be if you people keep going after him?" The Tharpod and the Young Blood looked at each other apparently having come to the same conclusions.

* * *

"Yoo Hoo! Where are you!?" Manny shouted floating over the Tharpod city, without much luck. He did however Spot Dani who was glaring up at him with a severely displeased expression on her face. "Oh come on!" Manny landed in front of Dani. "I didn't even do anything this time!" Still looking severely unamused Daniela looked around her at the destroyed buildings, dead Yautja, and rising columns of smoke.

"Luckily, thanks to me, we can stop wasting our time on these ones." Manny didn't seem to think it was so lucky, he was having so much fun too. "I convinced them of the futility of their situation, but before we go we should consider acquiring more powerful weapons and creatures for this thing." Daniela stated holding up the pocket watch like device. "Fantastic, I'll do the fun stuff and you can do the boring stuff!" Saying that Manny zoomed off into the air, as Daniela noted he failed to differentiate Fun and Boring.

* * *

Meanwhile the Young Blood and the Tharpod scientist were reviewing the considerable amount of data that he was able to gather on the individual who visited them.

"Interdimensional energy hmm? Not unlike the Nethers. Luckily we have a sample of their genetic code." Daniela probably should be more careful in front of whom she blows her head off. "Calibrating energy signature, uploading modification to Plasma caster and... done." The Tharpod leaned back to show his associate his handiwork. "It should be more effective against them, though until we can figure out a way of keeping them from regenerating I'd advise against attacking them." The young blood took his modified weapons and headed out, before the main force got here he would scout out the enemy, thoroughly.

* * *

Manny had found a 'Gadgetron' vendor and was now perusing it's contents, among them he found something that made him smile. As someone with the ability to manipulate sound the concept of a musical weapon appealed to him. Course it's so rare to find this concept put into practice. Case in point, the RYNO V, a combination Missile launcher and Gatling gun that fires off missiles in turn with with a piece known as 1812 Overture. What was that? He had no idea but the thought of a missile launcher that could be programmed to unload it's explosions in tune with music made him happy. The issue here though was in trying to buy the damned thing, because from what he can tell it doesn't exist until he gives the vending machine it's payment and it makes it, 1 000 000 bolts. 1 000 000 of anything would demand time and effort to collect no matter how you looked at it, and he didn't even know what that was to get some.

"Alright then, back to the town."

Daniela was stocking up on supplies, even though she and her brother are immortal things get inconvenient for them if they don't eat, stressing the limits of their entropy, not to mention that their immortality only regenerates and not provide energy for day to day activities. However the local currency confounded her, a highly advance scientific civilization and their currency was literal scrap metal. That was not a jab at hard currency, rather what she saw the people exchanging hard fought supplies for mere nuts, gears, springs and of course bolts, that last one seemed to be the catch all term. Daniela didn't have enough interest in the subject to find out why only that she needed to get her hands on some.

"Well now that's promising." Dani stated looking at a poster with a picture of a bolt at the bottom followed by a seven digit string of alien symbols. "That's interesting." Dani looked at the contents of the poster and winced when she saw what it actually involved doing. "Great. I have to go get the idiot now."

Point of interest Manny came to her, in one of his rarely thought out acts of planning ahead he brought along something that they could feasibly sell at the market place, sadly though the giant fire breathing worm he had hoisted above his head was still alive.

"Manny!" Daniela flew above the area, scanned the worm with the Nemetrix, before confronting her brother. "Chuck that thing away I got a way you can make some real scrap!" Daniela shouted tapping her finger on her arm impatiently.

Daniela led Manny to a massive gladiator arena, it seems that ever since the Loki had been dethroned as top dogs Magnus had rapidly become a haven for criminals, mercenaries and corrupt governments, drawn in by the massive amount of unpleasant creatures each worth a huge amount of bolts, and later on people who were lured in by the hunters. Of course the Yautja had first dibs on the planet, not that they seemed to mind the extra traffic, all the influx of dangerous people served their purposes as hunters quite nicely, Magnus had become the closest thing to a colony world that they have known for a long time. The Tharpods didn't mind either, all the traffic was doing wonders for their economy, even after they figured out how to stop Ephemeris they didn't bother for the constant boons it brought to their planet. A place where Manny gets to pound the living crap out of people and for once Dani wouldn't yell at him for it? Manny couldn't sign the holoscreen fast enough.


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note**: So someone is posting reviews that I can't Read? Well that's annoying, not to you anonymous reviewer you keep doing what you're doing and I'm looking forward to getting back to you eventually. I'm talking about FanFiction that seems to be having a conniption fit and won't let me read them. In the mean time Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 19: Destruct-a-palooza

The arena was, frankly speaking, huge. The Tharpods apparently took advantage of a massive crater that had formed when the original Loki meteorite crashed down into the planet and turned it into a coliseum. Apparently they found it necessary to build tourist attractions for the thugs coming to pillage their planet now. Still 'Destruct-a-poloza' looked like it brought in a huge number of aliens of varying shapes and sizes who were now cheering in the stands. One alien, a vaguely lizard lizard like creature who was wearing the hide of some unfortunate creature, walked into the center of the fighting area proper with a micro phone in hand as he welcomed the crowd.

"Good afternoon ladies and Gentlemen! Our good friend and sponsor Ephemeris has just gotten back with it's latest bunch-o creatures that we get to capture, torture and throw into the fighting ring for your entertainment pleasure!" A hover lift was now floating over the area, inside of it's crate a monster was roaring trying to break free without much luck. "But before we get to our main event, we got ourselves a little problem." The would be ring master gestured to the would be contestants. "Too many thugs, not enough monsters! So for our first round everyone here needs to have _two_ entry badges!" Immediately the sound of bodies flying could be heard. "When this timer reaches Zero!" Alien symbols appeared above the Thug Leader's head on the screen he was pointing at. "Then the first round of Destruct-a-poloza will begin!" It was in that moment that the thug leader noticed two things. The gasping reactions of the crowd and the sudden awkward silence.

"Ah..." The tapping to the Thug Leader's head felt like it was going to cave his skull in. "Sorry it took me so long." The Thug leader turned around to face Manny who had a mock apologetic look on his face and a massive sack. "There were more than I thought." Saying that Manny held up the massive sack containing thousands of contestant badges. The Thug Leader's scaley face was wide open with shock, his eyes drifted to the giant pile of bodies that had been built up directly behind the halfa, before that is he promptly slapped himself in the face and got back to his old self.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Our competitor!" The Thug leader shouted grabbing Manny by his wrist and holding it up in the air. "Don't worry about the rest of the competition though!" With the snap of his fingers the Thug Leader sent the bodies Manny had stacked up into a trap door. "That's what clones are for! But while we're working on that why don't we have our friend here help us out with a little infestation problem!" With a snap of his fingers the Thug Leader had produced several platforms from below producing several blue puff balls the size of a fully grown thug, even more surprising is that with a cough they spat out more blue puff balls which then grew into more fully sized proto-pets. "These proto-pets were picked up by Ephemeris several days ago, and they have been reproducing like crazy!" Suddenly the Proto-pets snapped with maws full of sharp pointy teeth. "And I hear that some Loki have even gotten into them." The crowd responded with several boos, thoroughly aware of what Loki are really like. "So with that in mind our competitor has just three minuets to eliminate all of them." Once again the Thug Leader pointed to the count down screen. "Ready? G-!" The Thug Leader didn't even get the chance to scream before an explosion of ecto energy wiped the playing field.

Little Knife was happy he didn't enter the arena himself, he would have been killed twice over already, that wasn't to say that he had any designs on letting Manny go only that he needed more information to accomplish his task. Luckily he would be getting that information soon. The Thug Leader peeled himself off of the wall, if not for his premium nano-tech and armor that explosion would have killed him and this little butt pain knew it.

"Ahem. We will be back after a quick word from our sponsor." Then the Thug Leader promptly collapsed, exhausted from the injuries Manny gave him.

"Well this is going smoothly." Dani had been able to collect a few bolts on her way here, for some reason people just leave them lying around all over the place in easy to break crates, and had twice already bet everything they had on Manny, the first time he had three thousand to one odds landing them nine hundred million bolts and the second time he had twenty to one odds landing them eighteen billion. Dani could buy a fleet of war ships with this kind of scrap, hell she could probably build them but that was not the important part right now. The important part was that Dani could buy all the parts she wanted, and even a few left over for Manny. Still after thoroughly beating into the enemy the utter hopelessness of actually beating Manny into submission Dani didn't see much point in doing anymore betting.

"The following match is brought to you by Croid Industries." A holo screen depicted a familiar looking Frumpoid. "Maker of the highly customized Thruster packs you'll be seeing in this next match."

"Hmm..." Dani grabbed hold of her chin as she looked up at the screen recognizing the face of a Frumpoid scientist. "Weren't you the one working with that Yautja earlier?"

"Excuse me miss." One of the thugs had sneaked up on Dani. "We deeply apologize but there was a error with your transfer earlier, if you'd like to come with us we can have it sussed out in no time."

Ah yes, Dani both had a strong guess about the error and what they intended to do to fix it. On that note once the thug had turned around Dani made a clone of herself and had her possess the alien. For now Dani just let the body run on auto pilot, let the Thug guide her to where they intended to execute her with more intangible clones following her, her suspicions were all but confirmed when they arrived at an abandoned out of the way alleyway no where near the betting area.

"Here we go..." Several thugs appeared behind Dani and got ready to open fire, Dani's clones possessed them without so much as a fight. "All of our accounts have been emptied into yours." The Thug stated tapping a few keys on his wrist computer. "Sorry for the inconvenience, here is a gun for your troubles."

"Thank you." Dani promptly used the gun to shoot the group of thugs in their heads, reabsorb her clones, before going back to her seat in the stands. Fix-It was already working on improving the gun in several ways while she watched the arena. It appeared to be called a omni-gun: able to be customized on the fly with a variety of nasty effects: Dani planned on adding a few more though.

"Thank you Doctor Croid, now onto the next event." Several rings leading into the nearby canyon opened up, floating in mid air were large energy rings, the purpose of which would soon become clear. "A Run through Nether Canyon!" A platform opened up beside Manny revealing a comically small, in comparison to Manny, Jet pack. "Using our Thug's for less approved Jet pack our contestant will have to fly through each ring in our obsta-kill course in three minuets all the while being attacked and harassed by the Nether's that we've trapped inside of the canyon with Dr. Croid's patented new Nether Shield!" That got quite a few cheers out of the audience. "Available for purchase on your way out of the coliseum at our souvenir stand!" The Ring Master explained as he moved out of the way, less Manny decide to get explosive again. "Is the contestant ready!?" Manny made a point of shoving away the jetpack that was given to him and he bent down into a position like a sprinter getting ready for a race. "Set. GO!" Manny took off like a rocket, going from zero to two hundred in a instant, and back zero again just as quickly.

"Ouch!" Manny had a head long collision with the 'Nether Shield' that Doctor Croid had set up, leading him to conclude that 'Nether Shield' = 'Ghost Shield.' And Manny was already on the clock.

"It seems that for once our contestant finds himself stymied, I hope no one's bet their life savings on him completing this race." Manny had no time to deliver a trollish retort. He went back to the start, turned into human form, and strapped on the jet pack.

"Let's try this again." Manny activated the Jet pack, hovered a couple of feet into the air, before the pack promptly died a scandalized death. "What a shame! It seems that our jet pack doesn't have enough fuel to carry the big stupid brute."

"'Oh it doesn't have enough fuel.'" Muttering that Manny chucked the jet back, went ghost, shot himself full speed at the first ring, and turned back to human before he came into contact with the shield. As such he was sent flying through the first ring. And only the first ring. Manny was sent straight up through the air and sailed above the canyon into the forest on the other side.

"The contestant has left the play area. Which means that he is disqualified!" The Thug Leader announced looking down in satisfaction at his accounts rose. Indeed the massive betting in Manny's favor had proven that no one expected him to lose this fight and the Thug Leader's account went up, however he did not recover the losses incurred by the one better who had made use of the ghost child.

"Glad I didn't vote for him this time." Dani figured that after the first couple of rounds Manny would become well known enough that the Thugs could cobble together some countermeasure against him, or put him into a challenge that had nothing to do with fighting. Sadly the fact that the two came in together and their family resemblance were both noticed by the Thugs.

"I just got this notice." The Thug Leader made a show out of having his men escort Daniela into the arena proper. "In compensation for her brother cowardly leaving the fighting arena his sister has graciously volunteered to take his place."

"Have I now?" Daniela stated the look on her face one of someone who tried, and failed, to wrack her brains for the memory of this volunteering. "Very well then." Daniela stood up and walked into the arena.

The fact of the matter was that Dani was on a time table, a time table that now included tracking down Manny, and a time table that would culminate with Ephemeris leaving Magnus: with their ship. Immortal or no she did not have time to fight off a hoard of enemies, especially ones who have managed to figure out their own variant of Fenton tech.

"What is this challenge then?" The Thug Leader gestured to Nether Canyon, the same one that Manny bounced off of so gracelessly. Dani took one look at the Jet Pack Manny 'attempted' to use, still a smoking wreck. "You don't expect me to make use of the same Jet Pack my brother fried with his muscle do you?" The platform with the Jet pack on it disappeared into the mechanical whirring below and popped back out with a new jet pack on it. "Very well then." Dani walked up to the jet pack and held it in her black arm. Fix-it put his genius level intellect and vast technological resources to work modifying and upgrading the jet pack in numerous incomprehensible ways in the same amount of time that it takes most people to figure out how to put the thing on. "Are you ready?" Dani strapped the pack on and pulled out the Omni-Gun that Fix-It had been toying with for the past several minuets. "What do you think?" Dani and the Jetpack flew into the Nether Canyon. Course being thrown into these fools death trap against her will gave her no reason to want to complete their gauntlet and towards that end went straight up. Unfortunately the Thugs had the foresight to erect a second barrier on top of this one, one designed to blot out the mundane instead of the super natural, leaving her with no other course but to complete their course: with a thousand hungry eyes staring back at her.


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note**: Okay so after Five weeks of continuous vacation time I'm back to work as of tomorrow. Now don't get me wrong getting away from my co-workers for a month was good and all but it has been boring as hell. That said please read, review, favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 20: A Taunt Too Far

Manny woke up after his impromptu trek through Nether canyon, looking mighty dissatisfied with not having had the opportunity to fight anything. Currently he was wondering what he was going to do now. He was in the jungle that surrounded the Thug's Make Shift arena, tangled up in the vines that he quickly tore himself free off in spite of said vines being strong enough to crush steel bars like they were gazelle in the grip of a python.

"Well that was a dirty trick but I don't see why I can't rejoin the fun!" After saying that Manny was rudely interrupted by his head being blown off. That said what was on Manny's face when his head regrew was sheer joy. "And here I thought you guys had gotten bored!" Manny stated turning back into his ghost form.

* * *

While Manny faced off against the latest batch of Yautja Dani was still inside of Nether canyon being swarmed by the things. Luckily Dani had stocked up on Mr. Zurkon's, and had the Omni-pistol which she had adjusted for ecto beams, together it was a combination that managed to eliminate the Nethers guarding the refueling stations, allowing Dani to top herself off periodically, which is a good thing when you realized that she had modified her pack for power. It was this that allowed Dani to make it through the other side with enough time to turn her pack back into a factory model in time for the inspection from a Thug's engineer. And it was what allowed her to take generous samples of the nethers DNA for the Nemetrix. However in relying on technology to fight Dani revealed a rather fatal weakness, that she was vastly weaker than her idiot brother.

"And now for a Rematch!" Dani had a very ominous feeling from the Thug Ringmaster just now. For one thing she can't for the life of her remember ever having done this before to set up a re-match. "On our benefactor Ephemeris's last run it picked this girl and her brother. But he also picked up our main event!" The Ring master pointed to the crate which had been suspended above the arena, which then snapped dropping the crate on the ground and busting it open.

"RRRAAARRRGGGHHH!" Several clawed arms swung their way through the dust clouds before slamming into the ground. Then the dino-cat's eyes locked on Dani, the four slits narrowing into a glare. "You...!" Keep in mind that all that Asura could see from up there was a mass of white hair, as it so happened that gave her a lot in common with someone who recently had gotten quite a bit of amusement out of ruining Asura's day.

"Me?" Dani for her part didn't even know that the big stupid monster even existed let alone that he had some kind of grudge against her.

"Asura remembers you little ghost boy!"

"I blame Manny for this." Dani stated instantly figuring out what was happening. Asura slammed his hand into Dani, picked her up, before throwing her across the arena slamming her into the Ghost Shield separating her from the audience and causing her to spark.

"Ugh." Dani peeled herself off of the shield and adjusted her neck with a crack before she looked up at her opponent. "Fine you want a fight." Appoplexian, Tetramand, Vaxasaur hybrid, use extreme force to disable. "You'll have one." Dani expended her remaining Zurkon's and they loosed a mass of rail gun bullets into Asura, not his hide that was far too thick and invulnerable for those to work, rather the drones flew up to the face and the rear and started loosing rounds into any hole they had available.

"GGGAAAHHH!" Asura was not amused. It did however give Dani time to finish another mode for her Omni pistol, someone needed to remind her to streamline that process in the future. "Asura is gonna murderized little ghost boy!" Asura shouted as he smacked Zurkon's out of the air, and was greeted by a blast of anti-matter to his face destroying the molecules in his head.

"Well that bites." Dani wasn't expecting the recoil from that gun, anti matter has a bit of a bite to it when you're not using it as a grenade, she should look into getting a rifle version of the Omni-gun. "I at least feel like I should've told him I'm not a boy before..." Then Asura's head grew back and he stood back up, albeit hunched over in his gorilla walk. "...I killed him?" Oh Dani wanted no part in this.

The Thug Ringmaster was quick to panic, Dani's win condition was to kill Asura, with the revelation of Asura's immortality it now looked like they had rigged the match.

"Ah Ahem! Ladies and gentlemen this match will resume after a short intermission." Thugs moved in with Chronal blasters immobilizing Asura by freezing him in time while others moved in to rebuild the stupid thug's cage around him, most likely the same tactic they had used to restrain the stupid brute in the first place.

Dani wasted no time in trying to get away, though she had already wasted her supply of Zurkon drones the Thugs had made a critical error in planting their ghost shield inside of the arena. Always one to punish the enemy for their stupidity Dani took aim and fired at the ghost shield generator, then just to be extra spiteful she blasted the thugs restraining Asura before taking off at full speed while the stupid brute covered her escape.

"ASURA HATES THUGS!" By the sounds of things the Thugs would have to find a new mascot.

* * *

The fight between Manny and the latest group of hunters was even more difficult then it was the last time, the use of personal ghost shields and plasma casters tuned to fighting the halfa gave them some defense and offense. Some, not a lot. A ghost shield did approximately bupkus against a tree being chucked at them, nor did a plasma caster do them any good when your opponent is a immortal who can instantly regenerate from the most grievance injuries. Manny's response to getting blasted again was to let loose with his ghostly wail picking up rocks, branches, logs and dirt in the process and hurling them all at the Yautja at the speed of sound.

"Don't get me wrong fellas you're good and all." Manny closed the distance with one of the Yautja, turned back to human form, before promptly plucking the head from one of the Yautja. "But if you wanna beat me: send a reaper next time!" Saying that Manny crushed the head he held in his hands. "Now, unless any of the rest of you wanna go another ten rounds: I'm off!" As fun as Magnus has been, Manny felt like leaving now, preferably before Dani yelled at him again for some mis-perceived grievance and so left for Ephemeris: just in time to miss the reaper portal that had opened.

* * *

Dani was able to use the bolts she earned to restock her supply of Zurkons at the Gadgetron vendor, and purchase some heavy weapons chief among them being the Omni-Rifle, a counter part to the omni pistols with just as much potential for customization and destruction. But she wasn't off the hook yet, the thugs were closing in on her and they had brought their heavy gun ships.

"Great." Dani looked at the vendor again in search of something to give her a bit more bite, and found what she was looking for. Thus using up a sizable number of bolts Dani whipped out _two_ huge ten barrel Gatling guns with each barrel being ten centimeters wide and both being strapped to the fore limbs of a huge set of battle armor. An oh crap reaction spread across the thug's faces as the barrels loosed their projectiles, each one exploding taking out several thugs in tune to what suspiciously sounded like opera music. After ten seconds of sustained gunfire Dani released the trigger, having closed her eyes while she fired and was greeted by a scene of ruin. "Rip Ya a New One doesn't even begin to describe it." Dani commented looking down at the suit. "Now I know how I can get this thing off, but how am I supposed to get out of this?" Fast as it had appeared the suit disappeared, folded off of her body before being compressed down to a humble chest plate on her person. "Well that's one question answered." Dani turned to a surviving Thug, walked over, picked him up by his neck, and glared into his very soul. "If you come after us again, any of you, and I will make all of you wish Asura ate you. Clear?"

The thug quickly and fearfully nodded before Dani let him go and he ran away. With that said Dani debated the benefit of going back to the market to pick up equipment to replace what was lost when the station blew, and dismissed it when she saw that Ephemeris was moving again.

"Oh for the love of!" Like that Dani took off into the air straight towards the station and landed on one of it's platforms inside as the massive creature collector was preparing to take off again. Aside from the Nethers Dani hadn't had much opportunity to expand upon the creature database she had started back on Monster Island, luckily Ephemeris had a predisposition towards collecting samples of the creatures it snatched up. Once again Dani would have to sort through the mass of genetic information, and hope that one of them would be enough to unlock the Infi-Map. Though Dani thought about that the chances that they would be returning to earth any time soon were promptly put on a kibosh as a explosion sounded off of the side of Ephemeris causing it to promptly crash into the ground. "Meat head." Dani snapped her eye twitching with a dangerous glare.

* * *

Manny, for once, was innocent, just as confused as his sister when someone decided to take a pot shot at the side of their ride off world. The chief suspect however made his appearance known, a Yautja with black armor and blades coming out of his fore arms with a sinister glint about them making a screeching sound as he ran it across the ground. He almost didn't notice the white bone for all of the armor, not decorating his armor as Yautja are one to do, though there was elements of that, but rather the bone that was beneath the armor, and which should have been below Yautja flesh.

"So a Predator Reaper eh?" Manny smirked as he felt himself getting excited again. "Well, I did tell them to go get one didn't I?" Manny cracked his fingers as he stared down the enemy before him.

The Yautja Reaper walked forward, a second reaper blade popping from his other arm as he began running down the corridor stabbing both blades into the wall/floor of the ship and grinding them through with alarming efficiency. Manny took the first slash across his torso allowing him to get a hold of the Yautja Reaper's blade and deliver a point blank ecto artillery shot to the undead's face. Not his brightest move when you then see him swallow the ecto grenade whole, and channel it's power into his fist to then slam it into the ground in a shock wave knocking Manny back a rather considerable distance. "Right. Reaper's like ecto." The wound left on Manny's chest stung like you wouldn't believe, chiefly because it was still there, but more so because his immortality was trying to fix it but couldn't, instead just building up tissues around it like something was going to pop out of it. "Well then, time for plan B then."

Deducing both that getting slashed again and blasting with ecto were bad ideas Manny grabbed hold of the flooring, ripped it out, and slammed it back down again. The shockwave was transmitted through the soft metal and like a rug being pulled out of someone the Reaper was knocked over, briefly before getting back up, still it was long enough as the predator had lost sight of Manny.

_"Come on don't you want to play!?" _Manny's own mocking tone was spat out as a recording from the Yautja Reaper.

"HELL YEAH!"

Manny popped out from the floor to deliver a upper cut to the Alien's jaw. Manny put the alien into a joint lock ramming his blade into the floor before snapping it with his fist. Before the Yautja could retaliate with his other Blade Manny disappeared into the floor again.

_"Marco."_ The Yautja echoed again making use of Manny's mocking tones.

"Polo!" The Yautja spun around swinging one arm blade where he heard Manny but nothing was there, instead getting slammed with another section of ship propelled by his Ghostly Wail. Credit where it was due this one was good with voices. Dani meanwhile, seeing what was happening from afar, could only shake her head in dismay before she got to work.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note**: Okay so as a experiment I did a couple more chapters and in the process confirmed my worst fears. For whatever reason I can only seem to spit out one chapter per week now which also means that I'm only going to be able to work on one story per week now. With that in Mind Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

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Chapter 21: Return

The Yautja Reaper was wandering through Ephemeris's ruins, stalking around in search of Manny. He was precisely aware of how this violation of the natural order came to be and he was not amused by it in the slightest. Reapers are meant to reap, not bestow eternal life, withering away souls never to be renewed, even if this creature seemed to have far more ecto than most others, the fact that he's still alive yet wields the power of the dead only confirms his status as an abomination needing to die. Then he had the nerve to openly taunt him and mock his species for not being a abominable mutant that flagrantly flaunt's the abilities bestowed by another.

_"Marco..." _A synthesized version of Manny's voice echoed out of the Yautja's mask as he scanned the surroundings. Heat censor's might not logically be as effective at tracking creatures with no body heat as the warm blooded but it was not heat that he was tracking right now but the absence of it. Ghost's, even ghosts in possession of a flesh and blood body, produce a overwhelming cold aura as they work to draw in heat to maintain their energy based bodies.

"Polo!"

It did not unfortunately have three hundred sixty degrees of coverage. Manny had sneaked up behind him and stopped his foot into the ground hard enough to send chunks of metal plating up into the air before blasting them with a Ghostly Wail shooting them at the alien Reaper. The Reaper however had more years of experience slashing at the incoming projectiles with dual arm blades before they could get any closer than two feet. Manny however used the distraction to his advantage rushing over to the reaper and locking arms as the two of them grappled with one another. The Reaper still had his arm blades out and put them both through Manny's hands and Manny grabbed hold of the Reaper's fists.

"Got Cha!" Course now that Manny didn't have to worry about getting cut with those things anymore he blasted the Reaper point blank with a Ghostly Wail attack sending him flying back, sans Arms. "Now I just gotta get rid of these." Which was then followed up by Manny chucking both of the arms out of the nearby hole in the wall he made over a considerable distance. "Now than..." Manny took a brief moment to assess the damage, like the one that had appeared on his chest his hands were now being covered in scar tissue from where the blades went into them, with any luck his fine motor skills wouldn't be compromised by this. "Where were we?" Asking that Manny charged forward again preparing to pummel the bone head opponent into a pulp, and for his reward was pinned to the ground with stabbing pain going through his chest. "What the...?"

The arms Manny had just thrown away were now sticking out of a reaper portal, both of their blades rammed through Manny's body pinning him to the floor. The Reaper loomed over him, glaring down at Manny as he leaned over and reattached his severed arms to his shoulders and picked Manny up to look him directly in the eyes.

_"Next time bring a Reaper."_

Having just thrown Manny's own mocking back in his face the Reaper withdrew one of his arm blades, and replaced them with two smaller blades that were coming out of his knuckles as he prepared to deliver a uppercut to Manny's chin. Then, completely ruining the moment in the process, something hit the Reaper on the head and fell to the floor, and both the reaper and his to be trophy realized too late that it was a grenade. The explosion separated the two forcibly, if not for the fact that the Yautja intended to remove the pest's soul with his head so that he could make it into a trophy then Manny's soul and his body would be in two separate locations right now. The explosion had actually done Manny a favor, the super heated metal and air had actually melted his flesh and sealed his wounds closed all the way through his body.

"Come on you!" Fix-It actually had to build a harness out of Dani's arm to pick Manny up, even then it was just a matter of sitting him on his feet allowing Manny to run with her back to their ship, being led by the hand by Dani of course as he doesn't actually know where she parked their little home away from home. The anti-matter grenade bought them time and distance, the Reaper would have to put himself back together again before he would be a threat, and explosions separated them by a considerable distance. "Oh sure now you decide work." Luckily the new porta lab was arranged in a way that she could instantly spot the Infi-map on the way inside, and it was open. "Alright you where to next?" Dani grabbed hold of the controls hardwired into the map and immediately the entire porta lab was yanked off just as the Yautja was about to carve into the structure in question. Not amused at all.

* * *

Now that the pair had left Eternia prepared to move on with the celebration for peace having returned to the lands, Adam in particular realized the reason why the nobles had chosen to hold the celebration only after the twins had left and didn't like the implications. Well to be fair Manny at least he could understand, he was dreading the day that Manny decided he wanted to return and wanted to take him out drinking again. Still if Manny came back at least he could have Dani that he would suffer along side, that almost made it worth it. The snap in the sky immediately alerted Adam to what was happening, it was identical to the same snap that Manny and Dani had made when they had left. The Porta lab came out of the sky and ground to a halt past Adam, and suddenly no one was in the mood to celebrate. Adam rushed over and located the hatch but didn't get the chance to open it, Dani did that first.

"Don't have time to talk Manny's wounded." Adam's joy at seeing Dani again was whelmed with confusion.

"'Manny's wounded?'" Adam repeated the sheer incredulous in his voice plain as day.

Manny was delivered to a makeshift infirmary in one of the Tailor's shop and Dani was able to get his body back into working order.

"Ugh. I need a drink." Manny stated as he rubbed the side of his head.

"Bigger problems to worry about." Dani snapped glaring at her brother suspiciously.

"For starters do you mind explaining how it is that Manny can actually be hurt now?" Adam asked tapping his foot and glaring suspiciously.

"If you mean to say that conventional weapons will work on us now then you'll be very disappointed." Dani snatched a gun out of Man-E-Faces holster and raised it to give herself a head shot.

"We believe you!" That didn't mean that Adam wanted to see her blow her own head off again though. "But what weapon could hurt you two?"

"We call them reaper scythes, on account of the fact that they can only be made by a reaper, you might have a different word for them, I know for a fact that the one we fought has a different name for his lot." Dani explained crossing her arms.

"What do you mean we have a different name for them? Are you saying there are creatures like this on Eternia?" Adam asked the panic on his features plain as day.

"Reapers are a type of psycho-pomp, charged with guiding the souls of the dead off to the after life, and are typically a type of undead reanimated from the aborted and stillborn. Because of this they have such unpleasant abilities like making weapons whose wounds can never heal, or making people immortal." Dani explained having already guessed what Adam's next question would be.

"You said that your brother was the one who made you guys immortal..." Adam stated having already reached the correct conclusion.

"Yes he's a Reaper, of the aborted Variety. Or at least he was, I'm not sure of the technicalities right now considering... everything else." Dani stated and guessing the next question based on the way Adam was rubbing his fore head. Adam equated 'Everything else' when it comes to Dani to 'Heaping pile of complicated and dangerous issues ready to collapse in on itself any point in time.' "Of what I know: It's called Encroaching Doom Syndrome, or EDS for short, or it was Junior has a unique variant. It is something that can turn a reaper into something resembling a living breathing human by growing flesh all over their body." Adam choose not to ask what he look like without EDS. "This particular brand was refined from our genetic material, and like us every molecule of it is infused with and generates ecto energy which fuels his abilities."

"Okay. Is there anything else?" Adam asked looking suspicious.

"He's also host a soul eating demonic parasite with the capacity to mold their flesh into literally any form that our brother can imagine and compress down it's massive form thousands of times over." Adam was glad he wasn't drinking anything at the moment, he would've just spat it all over Dani. "Those are the big points. Everything else I can't confirm for certain."

"Lovely. Is the one you fought like that?" Adam asked looking concerned.

"No. Near as we can tell he isn't even the same species. They're called Yautja, more commonly known as Predators do to their nasty habit of hunting down and making trophies out of anything that looks like it can put up a fight." Dani explained before she started scratching her chin. "This one took offense to Manny openly mocking his species. I hit him with a Anti-Matter grenade before we left, barely slowed him down."

"Think he'll follow you guys here?" Adam asked looking overly concerned. "Likely. Yautja are mostly nomadic, in order to get to them all when they die he'd have to have cross galaxy capabilities. The question becomes when he'll get here." Which actually led to the next question. "How long have we been gone?"

"I barely had the time to turn away from where your ship disappeared." Then a thought occurred to Adam. It took Dani longer to explain what they had been doing while they were away then for them to leave and come back. "How long have you been been away?"

"At least a month. We've managed to cherry pick a planet for resources for a super weapon, got dragged off to another planet, cherry picked that for resources, antagonized at least two alien races and rebuilt our ship from scratch. We've been gone at least that long."

"Ugh." Oh Adam needed a mug of coffee in a bad way. "Should I put the army on high alert?"

"Not unless you want these animals thinking that they're worthy prey. I'll set up a barrier to harass him. Let's just hope that no one is planning on trying to fill the void Skeletor left." Dani should not have said that.

* * *

Speaking of old bone head somebody was inside of his house, like a narrowly build lizard man. Without any of Skeletor's Evil Warriors or Tri-clop's mechanical monsters lying around it was easy to break in undetected. His name was Kobra Khan, one of the numerous prisoners released from the Eternian prisons by the Evil Warriors to cause havoc. Course Kobra Kahn was far less interested in joining Skeletor's ranks than he was in his freedom, if old Skull face won they he would simply deliver the heads of a few chieftains to earn his favor. But since he lost Skeletor's base was ripe for the taking, and Kobra Kahn had gotten here first, more important than that he had found what he was looking for: an ancient Eternian shrine. The Shrine had a octagon shaped depression on one of it's pillars and Kobra Kahn had the key, passed down for many centuries among his people, even as they were hunted by the tribes of the dark continent, until he was the last. But he wouldn't be the last now. Kobra put the key into it's slot, stepped away as the shrine buzzed to life, and bowed waiting impatiently for the ones on the other side to step forward and reveal themselves. And so they did, and thus the Snake men had returned to Eternia.


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note**: Not too much longer now. I may come back to this story later if I don't come up with anything first, but it won't be for a while yet. In the mean time though Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 22: The King of Snakes

Manny and Dani were back in their home away from home Eternia, truth be told they didn't expect to have to return here so soon, nor for that matter did they expect that it would be because they were chased here. That said it was Manny's fault, that Dani had anticipated. Manny had gone off to retrieve a new bathing slime, with the additional hope that getting dissolved then healed from the ground up again would cure his injuries. In the mean time Dani was seeing what kind of creatures were loaded onto the Nemetrix, now that she finally had a test subject that is.

"Are you sure this isn't going to hurt him?" Adam asked as he looked worriedly at Cringor, his green with yellow striped tiger who had been affixed with the Nemetrix.

"Yes." On that note Dani was scrolling through the options that had been laid out for them. "But to be on the safe side I'm going to start with something relatively close to him in size." Organizing all of the creatures by size was a wise idea it would seem. "Beginning test now." Going with the smallest sized creature in the Nemetrix Cringor's form was replaced with that of a brown and far harrier lion like creature with big saber tooth fangs.

"Cringor buddy you still in there?" As part of the test Adam had brought along one of Cringor's cat toys and playfully dangled it above his head, getting a response of playful pet who rolled onto his back to bat at the mouse hanging off of the end of a fishing rod.

"Test successful." Dani commented as she checked one box on the clipboard she was holding up. "Now for the dangerous part."

"Wait a second. You mean to say that transforming Cringor into a dangerous alien monster that could potentially try to eat us all wasn't the dangerous part?" Adam asked the look on his face that of someone who looked like he he had been lied to.

"The dangerous part is going through each of the transformations on this thing one by one learning their various powers and abilities so that when we try to use them in combat we don't end up getting ourselves killed because we were relying on a giant pile of unknown and potentially unstable factors." Dani explained prompting a look of sheer horror on Adam's face.

"Luckily we have a expert on pelting random ideas against a wall until something sticks." Thus Daniela cupped her hands over her mouth. "MAN-!" On pure instinct Adam immediately clapped his hands over Dani's face silencing her while Cringor fled in terror, and sadly got no where as one of the Dani clones appeared to hold him back.

"This is serious! Even if we don't end up using Cringor for this thing we still need to make sure that it, and all of it's functions, work in a manner that we understand and what are you two staring at!?" Turning around and noticing the gaping stares of the two people who were supposed to be working on this with her, one of which included another version of herself, the Dani Clone followed their gazes to Cringor. Or rather Cringors. In his blind panic to try and get away the cowardly cat was literally pulling himself apart, with each new part being spawned as a brand new Cringor who was trying to flee for safety prompting a surprised look from Dani, perhaps most impressive of all of this was that Cringor himself was the last to notice trying to get away in his blind panic until he tried to take a hiding spot that was already occupied.

"Well this has potential." Immediately Dani bent over and grabbed hold of the Nemetrix with her black arm having Fix-It change it over to it's next form. However there was delay as the device seemed to refuse to cooperate, as Dani was beginning to wonder if she broke it the other Cringor's started to react. Suddenly the other saber toothed lions were picked up, floated over, before fusing back into the one that Dani had been tampering with before in a flash of red light turning into a giant vaguely spider like creature. "Well that's disappointing. Moving on." Dani got distracted by her clip board, Cringor chose that moment to run away, using it's spider like body to rapidly climb up a nearby wall to escape Dani. "It can climb walls, I mean people have worked with less but I was expecting... more."

"I'll go calm down Cringor." Adam interrupted before Dani tried to do anything else to his life long companion.

"Right then. I should probably check on Manny then." While Dani was debating what she should be doing next several alarms all went off at once indicating a full blown red alert and call of hands to all facilities. Dani could only sigh while she got to work.

* * *

The Masters had been gathered inside of Man At Arm's workshop, if the fishing rods and sky balls left by the door were any indication it seems that many of them had interpreted 'Skeletor Defeated' with 'Vacation' and were only now rudely being informed otherwise.

"GreySkull has detected another threat coming in from the Dark Continent. Daniela if you would." Man At Arms stood aside allowing Daniela to walked up front of the group of warriors to address all of them.

"Contrary to my warning's the royal family has opted not to post a regiment inside of Snake Mountain, Skeletor's base of power. Though even I could not foresee this coming." Daniela showed the last orbital image of Snake mountain before it was shot down, credit where it was due it's new tenants were certainly making themselves at home inside of Skeletor's old haunt. Snake Mountain had grown, as terrifying a concept that was when you consider that it's a giant lava spewing mountain in the shape of a massive serpent, to be more accurate it had grown two more heads which were now twisted around each other with each of them drooling out lava in lava falls.

* * *

"It will do." The leader of the snake-men was probably the least snake looking individual of the lot, he had a clearly human like figure with a human like face draped in a Egyptian headdress. Still a stalking terror by the way, pale skin flushed with green poison instead of blood and piercing pupiless blood red eyes tend to have that effect on even other snakemen. "Now than my own. What has been happening in the world since my absence?" Kobra Kahn had not stopped kneeling before the rightful king of snake mountain since he was pulled out of his slumber. That said now that it was made clear his liege wanted to talk to him he stood at attention. "Tell me of King GreySkull."

"I know only of Castle GreySkull, a set of ruins in the North." The Modern Snake Man stated touch of legitimate confusion on his features.

"Then the King is no more?" That made King Hiss smile. "What of Hordak?"

"He is worshiped as a god by the people of the dark hemisphere, and like most gods he has been decidedly absent for a long time." Kobra Kahn stated making the implications of what he said clear.

"Very Good. We march on Eternia tonight."

* * *

"Daniela do you or the Sorceress know what this means?" Man at Arms asked gesturing to the screen depicting the three headed volcano.

"Snake Mountain has the appearance it had back when it was under the control of the snake men." Daniela stated as she held her chin in her hand.

"Snake Men? We had one of those locked up in the Eternian prison." Ram Man stated prompting a sigh from Daniela.

"Well there's that mystery solved." Face Palming herself Dani set to work. "At the height of their power the Snake Men were one of three major factions vying for control of Eternia, the other two being the King of GreySkull and Hordak of the Self proclaimed Evil Hoard."

"SNK." Everyone's attention was drawn to Manny who to his credit was resisting the urge to laugh. "So in other words Hordak was a Chuni Edge Lord too?"

"To be very clear. GreySkull stayed a top contender by letting the Snake Men and the Evil Horde duke it out while he kept his own boarders secure." To be fair though those boarders were approximately half of the planet. "In the absence of a power uniting the rest of the Dark Continent against the snakes there is nothing stopping them from giving _us_ their full attention."

"Well we have the super weapon you guys found while you were away right?" Mecka Neck asked mostly trying to reassure himself.

"The Nemetrix still has a load of functions we don't understand, and a hoard of transformations we know almost nothing about." Daniela stated holding her chin in her hand. "The ones I do know about however might be able to do something against them provided that Adam can catch Cringor."

"Why'd you attach that thing to that big scardy cat anyway?" Mann-E-Faces asked cocking a suspicious brow.

"Because he's the only one we got who can safely use it. Each transformation in the Nemetrix is a wild animal, geared specifically for savagery. If sapient mind were to try and put themselves in that position they would receive irreparable brain damage, even you or my brother."

"Cringor isn't exactly geared towards savagery either you know." Stratos pointed out drawing to mind the image of when the cat was still a kitten and playing with the young prince.

"No he isn't, but he also doesn't have anything that will hurt himself in his transformations, more than that he is tame and he will listen to orders. Assuming that Adam can coax him out of whatever hiding spot he's found that is." Adam walked into the meeting covered in ash and smoke coming off of burnt hair, a deeply unamused look on his features.

"The spider shoots lightning webs." Adam informed helpfully.

"Good to know, we're gonna need the other guy." Dani explained as she took the liberty of making a note in her notebook.

Adam looked up at the briefing on the back screen and nodded his head before walking out of the work shop.

"By the Power of GreySkull!" Adam stated pulling out his sword, the clouds above circling around them as the guard of the blade 'unlocked.' Then a bolt of electricity came down from the sky, drawn to the blade like a lightning rod as it's power entered and transformed his body. "I HAVE THE POWER!" And thus the second most monstrously ripped barbarian they've ever seen took form in front of them, albeit with a few modifications compared to last time.

"Nice armor." Unlike the last time most of Adam's transformed body was covered in armor plating. Aside from the fur kilt from before metal chain mail armor went up his torso and all the way down his left arm, with both arms ending in a set of sleek looking gauntlets. Forming a fist with his left hand a huge set of pincers came out of it. "Where'd you get it?" Manny asked cocking a smirk at the transformed prince.

"Daniela do you have an explanation for this?" Man at Arms asked indicating the armor.

"Hang on." Dani closed her eyes as she made contact with the Sorceress. "When GreySkull did deign to face the Snake Men he wore specialized armor that protected him from their particular brand of magic. His power remembered that, and the stink of the snakes, and has manifested this armor for the occasion." Daniela clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. "The situation is more dire than I had initially thought. Wait hang on." Apparently not done yet Daniela received more information from the sorceress. "It seems that she also has a upgrade for Cringor." The big fraidy-cat was a big fraidy-cat once more the Nemetrix having timed out and reverted Cringor to his birthday suit. That said he was still wearing the device itself which made the tiger dread the thought of Daniela coming to find him and feed him to her brother in the name of her deranged experiments.

"Cringor."

"Muu?" Cringor looked up to the transformed Adam. He still recognized his master's head though he was questioning where this monstrously ripped body of his was coming from. "Don't worry this won't hurt a bit!"

Saying that Adam swung his sword down firing a bolt of magical energy at the green and yellow tiger causing him to transform, primarily bulking up, gaining a lion's mane, saber like teeth, and finally brown armor including a face mask and a saddle. Long gone was the cowardly Cringor instead roaring proudly as if celebrating some sort of victory or perhaps a triumphant return.

"Dani..." Adam observed the transformation Cringor had underwent before but it bore repeating, the cat was like a completely different animal once more, confidence being the biggest difference.

"When GreySkull observed the effects of giant's blood on his body he experimentally injected more into the bodies of a pride of lions. It's only survivor would go onto become his companion and mount. His soul was waiting in reserve to aid the inheritor of his master's will." Adam could clearly make out the Nemetrix in between the face mask and the saddle on Cringor's back. "What effect do you think it will have on your weapon?"

"If this is any indication?" Dani replied gesturing to Cringor's newly transformed state.

"I would say bigger, tougher, meaner." Something that's pretty scary when you consider that the vast majority of transformations in the Nemetrix were already pretty damn big, tough and mean to begin with. "Either way we need to march on Snake Mountain. If we're lucky we can ambush The snakes before they cross the Eternian border."

"Too late." Man At Arms stated indicating his console. "Proximity alert." Man At Arms stated prompting the group to look over to the console in question, surveillance footage from one of the border outposts was playing, showing a group of lizard like people ripping the place apart. "If we make a straight line from Snake Mountain to this outpost, then that means that they're making a beeline for GreySkull. But if we can anticipate their path, then we can set up a ambush against them."

"Does any of the transformations on that thing specialize in speed?" Stratos asked looking at the spiked collar around Cringor's Neck suspiciously. "None that I know of. But there is one that specializes in hunting Snake Men." Saying that Daniela slapped the face plate of the Nemetrix.

* * *

The Snake men were making use of Serpinitaur's as they traveled through the skies above the Eternian jungles, the blue serpents Beast Man left behind were quite well trained and very vulnerable to King Hiss's ability to communicate with all things long and snake like so they made ideal mounts. The dragons they ran into were a slight problem but they did manage to solve the issue of his men who haven't had anything to eat since their long imprisonment.

"I was wondering how long it was going to take before someone took notice of us." The newcomer was as tall as a mountain, built like a gorilla with the tusks of a mammoth and covered white spines. Of more immediate interest though was the familiar brown armor that the monster was wearing, the saddle and face mask of one King Grey Skull, though far too large to be of use to anything short of a giant.

"King Hiss!" Adam was standing atop the transformed Cringor's head, accusingly pointed his blade down at the head of the man who declared himself king of the Dark World. "I am He-Man of Eternia! And I am here to make you answer for the crimes you have committed on this day!"

"Hmm. GreySkull's armor." But King Hiss quickly concluded the newcomer as nothing more than a boy, although still far larger than he was GreySkull's inheritor had clearly not grown into the King's power as of yet. "Cyltho if you would." One of the Snake Men pulled down his hood to reveal a head of snakes not unlike a Gorgon. However before the snake could demonstrate his power The huge white monster He-Man had been riding barfed a huge mass of ice and snow on top of the Snake's heads burying them in a huge ice berg in the process.

"Was that it?" Ram Man asked looking down at the snakes who seemed to have just been stepped on by the Twin's shape shifting monster.

"Once again it seems that those two are use to a higher standard than the rest of us." Stratos stated recalling how the twins stated the monster originated on the home world of their mother.

Then the ice berg cracked, a red glow originating from deep inside of the ice. Finally like a frozen turkey that had been dropped into a deep fryer the iceberg exploded releasing from within the snake men, who were now huddling around one who was drooling fire from his mouth.

"Impressive." The Serpinitaur's were effectively non-combatants but this point, curled up and shivering from the extreme cold, even if they'll thaw from the Fire Spitter soon that will not stop this creature from simply freezing them again. Similarly that huge monster would not be something felled by mere Serpintaurs. "I offer this one chance heir of GreySkull: Join me and I will elevate you into a vastly superior being."

"You're stalling." Adam stated having immediately come to the correct conclusion.

"So I am. It's taking slightly longer than I expected for my distraction to get here." King Hiss stated as he blocked the glare of the sun with his hand and looked into the air. "Ah there he is now!"

"HHHIIISSSSSS!" Suddenly a lance pierced through the sky and crashed down separating the two armies like a meteorite. The shockwave from the crash was enough to cover the entire area with dust and smoke.

"What the heck!?" Teela so appropriately summarized the reaction of the majority of the Masters.

"Hiss has called in back up! Adam have Cringor..." Suddenly it was the giant ice blowing mammoth that froze, in stone that is as suddenly Cringor was transformed into solid rock, the Nemetrix seemingly disappearing into the stone mass itself.

"Cringor!" Adam shouted panic strewn all over his features, but he did not have time to worry about his mount. Leaping up from the dust and smoke a huge muscle bound snake man made his presence known slamming down a massive rattling tail on Adam's head. But it was not the tail Adam had to fear, even just a few of the beads shaking inside of the rattle was enough to cause cracks to form in the stone beneath his feet, which is to say Cringor. "Hell no!" Adam grabbed his time in a half as large as he was opponent and threw him back into the cloud below. Kobra Kahn saw his comrade falling from above and put two and two together.

"If his monster means so much to him." Opening up his in built hood Kobra Kahn spat out a stream of acid at the feet of Cringor dissolving his ankles and under the pressure of his own weight the statue fell.

But it did not hit the ground. Stone exploded loosing from within what can best be summarized a giant, purple, crystalized humanoid hedgehog wearing the same red with grey studs collar and ancient battle armor that Cringor had been wearing going into battle earlier. Naturally Cyltho acted to turn this creature to stone as he had the last but unfortunately for him it was not working, for in this form Cringor was already made out of minerals. Rather the snake was brushed aside with a almost casual grace as the overly pointy monster went to find Adam. It didn't take him long, as a wall of crystal appeared to separate Adam and his fanged foe, Cringor making his displeasure with the second half of the Snake Man one two combo known.

"Cringor is that you!?" Adam's query was answered with a toothy grin. "I should have known that it would take more than just a block of stone to keep you down! Think you can do something about this mess?" Cringor seemed to think about it for moment before tapping the device on his neck again. "Right! Let's try for something with wings!" Dani had taken the liberty of strapping the controls for the Nemetrix to the underside of Adam's gauntlet allowing him to go through the various playlists. Luckily several entire playlists were helpfully covered under the title of 'Birds.'

"Let's try this one!" Cringor shrunk, his form twisted into something entirely different. The air currents swirled around him before being pushed away revealing the snakes, largely already defeated. "Well done Cringor!" Adam turned around to face the newest form of his life long companion only to be met with confusion as he was no where to be seen. "Cringor?" The transformed tiger bumped Adam in the shoulder, still no where to be found, nor what form he had taken by the way. "I see you've turned invisible old friend. That will certainly come in handy."

Onto more important subjects without the fog and debris to obscure their vision any longer the snake men were now in full view. The Master's had ridden there on the back of Cringor and as soon as Adam had King Hiss's attention they had jumped off and began dealing with his subordinates. Of particular interest was the unfamiliar man who was fighting Hiss. Black, Bald, Seemingly blind if the clouds over his eyes were any indication. None of that stopped him from going toe to toe with Hiss though who only now seemed to take stock of the battlefield and the losses he incurred. "Time to go already." Saying that Hiss tapped his staff on the ground and serpent shaped magic circles appeared below the various snake men and disappeared into them.

"You are not getting away from me!" The Black Man raised his double ended spear into the air to strike down the King of the serpents, but unfortunately for him... "Tell that to them." The Serpinitaur's picked that moment to wake back up and gang pile onto the black man as Hiss escaped through his portal. "DDDAAAMMMNNN IIITTT!"


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's Note**: This and one More and I'm finally done with this story. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 23: Return of the King

There was a very real and present need to figure out what precisely was going on at the moment. Chief among the questions that needed answering was the blind black man who had interrupted the confrontation with the Snakes. Though his intervention had allowed the snakes to get away it was clear from his actions that he was the enemy of the snakes, in fact had he the foresight to inform them before hand of his intentions and coordinated their efforts the snakes would have never gotten away. Similarly the look on his face was someone who looked like he blamed the masters for letting the snakes get away if his angry furrow was any indication.

"Easy there Cringor." Adam's pet had returned to the form of a massive tiger and was now staring down the new comer angrily. "He isn't our enemy. Yet."

"I hope you have an explanation for this Zodak." Dani stated glaring down the black man angrily.

"You know this guy?" Adam asked looking suspiciously at the winged cyborg.

"His name is Zodak, he was one of Grey Skull's allies during his reign, and a exiled member of the Council of Elders in more recent years." Daniela explained and noticed how the Master's wisely chose to surround the monk.

"Why was he exiled?" Man At Arms asked cocking a suspicious brow.

"His brother was eaten alive by the King of the Snakemen. As a Consequence he thought eternal imprisonment in stasis was too soft a punishment. The rest of the council disagreed, the decision to keep the snakes where they are not out of justice but a need to put them out of the rest of Eternia's collective misery."

"Not just for my brother." Zodak stated piping up. "The Snakes prefer to eat their food while it's still alive, and to them all of us are food. They killed thousands of people, entire tribes rendered extinct by their fangs. But yes I also wish for justice for my brother."

"So he freed the Snakemen?" Adam asked leveling his sword at the monk's face.

"I sincerely doubt that." Dani stated redirecting the blade away from the black skinned monk. "Were he present at the snake's awakening then one of two things would have happened: either they would have eaten him, or he would have killed them to the last."

"I agree with this conclusion. Had I been allowed to finish this battle properly then not a single one of the snakes would have been allowed to leave here alive." Zodak stated making his opinion and his displeasure plain as day. "And if I am no longer under suspicion I would like to do so."

"You may go." Daniela stated opening a path for them through the group of masters with one of her wings.

"What do you mean 'you may go' weren't you saying earlier...?"

"This type of person is not use to working in groups, nor has any desire to do so. Best case scenario he does as he claims and eliminates the snake man threat, worst case scenario his suicidal charge succeeds in weakening the snakes or delaying their return to full power long enough for us to launch a successful counter strike and putting whatever scheme he is hatching on a kibosh." Zodak paid Daniela the barest of attention before he walked away, disappearing into a magical light and leaving the Master's in peace.

"What do we do now?" Ram Man asked speaking for the entirety of the Masters in the process.

* * *

King Hiss and his forces returned to Snake Mountain through a portal created by the King himself, the wounded were quickly and efficiently being tended to as Hiss took seat upon the throne once more.

"Master I..."

"I would say that was a rather successful endeavor wouldn't you." King Hiss stated to the immeasurable confusion of Kobra Kahn.

"Your majesty?"

"We've suffered zero casualties, met the faces of Eternia's elite forces, and seen the heir of Grey Skull. For this encounter we have complete all of our goals and thus can now plan accordingly." King Hiss stated prompting a look of outrage on Kobra Kahn's face.

"You planned for us to fail!" Kobra Kahn stated surprised.

"I plan to make a plan, now that I have the information I want." King Hiss stated leaning back into his chair. "First our wounded recover, then we move onto our conquest."

* * *

"King Hiss intended his attack to fail?" Adam asked looking surprised.

"Not so much fail as it wasn't a attack at all. Think about it for a moment." Daniela explained as she began drawing upon a white board. "One of your most dangerous enemies, trapped in a prison of their own design millenia ago, suddenly reappears and begins making a direct line to where they think your capital is located. What do you do?"

"Send everything you have in order to stop them." Adam stated without a shred of hesitation. "If you can stop Hiss from getting back to full power then it doesn't matter what he's planning on doing next."

"And thus you accomplish Hiss's main goal, that being to learn everything he can about us." Daniela stated bluntly putting the cap back on her marker.

"Is that the reason why you and your brother stayed out of the fight when we went to confront Hiss?" Man at Arms asked cocking a suspicious brow.

"Short answer. Yes." Daniela stated prompting a suspicious look from the Masters. "But the thing you have to realize is that the same holds true for the snakes as well. Everything that they currently have to their name was unsealed with their troops. So they have a very limited number of personnel that can fight, even if they held back their strongest fighters we should have a idea of what their fighting force looks like." Thus Daniela finished writing down the contents of the meeting on the board. "These are the magical artifacts from Grey Skull's era that Hiss should know about."

"Weren't most of these already rounded up by Skull Face?" Ram-Man asked prompting Daniela to nod.

"And then Manny smashed them. But there are things on this list that even Skeletor wouldn't touch with a twenty foot pole." Daniela stated as she erased the majority of the names.

"But Hiss would?" Meckaneck asked slightly fearful. "There are items more useful to Hiss than Skeletor, specifically ones that are designed to work with Hiss's abilities because he himself made them, or were made by the same person that made Hiss. Take this for instance." Daniela's finger landed on a name which clearly said 'Amulet of Echidna' on it. "This is a amulet designed to splice people's DNA with the Snake Men's. Hiss is able to control the minds of Snakes and that includes his followers. Take a minuet and think about the implications of that combination." The Master's had matching faces of sheer horror to show what they thought of that idea. "Good. If you understand then we have the next matter of concern to deal with. Even though we know what the amulet does, we have no way of knowing where it is, another reason why Skeletor had nothing to do with it. Towards this end we should..." It was at this point in time that Dani finally noticed someone was absent. "Where is my idiot brother at?"

* * *

"Da Da da dee dee dee~!" Manny was humming to himself as he played with the settings on the Nemetrix, with a literal lion's heart Cringor was a lot braver than normal and as such was actually willing to let Manny get near him. Still the possessed tiger looked at the immortal with blatant suspicion as he played with the device that would be mounted around his neck adjusting it's settings and tampering with it's forms. "Alrighty then let's try this one." Saying that Manny re-attached the device to it's socket around Cringor's neck. The device let out a short tune as Cringor's transformation counted down.

"Manny what are you doing?" Dani asked/shrieked having finally tracked down her brother.

"What's it look like? I'm trying out new settings on the Nemetrix just liked we discussed earlier." Manny stated looking down at the still not transformed Cringor and the beeping device around his neck. "Though why it hasn't gone off yet is a mystery to me."

"Huu." Dani on the other hand knew what was happening and turned intangible. "For larger transformations it has a delay timer so that we have a chance to get to a safe perimeter first." Speaking of which the device went off, replacing the form of the green armored cat with a gigantic worm easily as tall as the castle's towers. "Oh no." Dani stated dreading the sudden turn of events.

As if by instinct Cringor dived into the ground, directly into the Eternian dungeon where Skeletor and his cronies were being kept. Their luck must have been improving immeasurably, Cringor missed the lot of them by a mile, better still he simultaneously disabled their cells and crushed their holo-droid posing as Manny guard. Skeletor took one look at the situation, cocked his brow knowingly, and made a decision.

"It seems that we have early parole gentlemen." Skeletor stated directing the group's attention to the giant hole that had appeared above their heads.

"What makes you think we're doing anything you tell us?" Beast Man stated having grown a spine in his short time in jail. "The last time we trusted you we spent the better part of a decade living in a volcanic hell hole, only for us to be crushed: humiliatingly!"

"Don't talk about humiliation until after you've been shoved into a dress and made to prance about in front of the entire Eternian army!" Tri-Clops snapped glaring at his hairy one time comrade.

"Gentlemen have a look." Skeletor gestured down to their half crushed robotic guard. "The Child is gone, replaced by this contraption. I don't know about any of you but this seems like a fine opportunity to remind Eternia why we are feared."

"Were feared you mean, Skull face." Fishman snapped glaring hatefully at his one time master. "We're laughing stocks the lot of us!"

"Speak carefully fishman or..."

"You'll what? Drag me off to live in a volcano for another decade before we are shoved into another round of torture and humiliation?" Indeed the argument could be made that the fishman's quality of life had improved dramatically since his untimely imprisonment, three square meals and no longer made to labor inside of a hot sweltering volcano day in and out, nor did he have to live in fear of that child again. "I'm going to wait for the guard's to take me to my new cell, if any of you have brains in your heads you'll do the same." Saying that Fish Man went back into the rubble to wait.

"Well that's one down." Suddenly the masters turned around to look at Manny who was sitting on the pile of rubble that formed from the hole Cringor had made. "So do any of you other butt heads want to go back into your cages?"

"It's just another holo-droid!" Tri-Clops snapped pointing at Manny accusingly. "If I was a holodroid then would I have any of these scars on me?" Manny stated pulling up his shirt up to reveal Dani's stitch job across his chest.

"If you were who you are pretending to be you wouldn't have any stitches on you!" Skeletor snapped accusingly causing his once and future subordinates to nod their heads in agreement.

"I got hurt happens to the best of us." Manny stated with a indifferent shrug of his shoulders.

The way Skeletor saw it there were one of two possibilities, either A this was another holo-droid and thus very little stood in his path, or B this was the real deal which meant that they were actually capable of hurting him now. Either way Skeletor was pleased with both of these possibilities.

"Attack!" Skeletor charged up a spell in his hand and prepared to fire it at Manny.

"Oi you guys seem confused about something..." Manny intercepted the spell with his face, blowing flesh off of it as he got face to face with old Skull face before it immediately grew back. "Just cause I'm not as strong as I thought I was, doesn't mean I got any weaker."

Saying that Manny grabbed hold of leader of the Evil Warriors by his neck and kilt, moved behind Tri-Clops... "HHHYYYAAAHHH!" and promptly shoved the skull of Skeletor up the butt hole of his chief scientist.

"Now than butt heads, back to your cells." Understanding the meaning behind that insult now, the other Evil Warriors covered their posteriors with there hands as they fled back into their cells for safety. Having reminded his torture dummies of his address Manny flew back up and out of the hole Cringor made. "Satisfied?" Manny asked smirking knowingly.

"Not even remotely. We have to find Cringor and the Nemetrix after you fix up the hole you made in the prison!" Daniela snapped indicating the hole Manny had just climbed out of.

"The limits of my expertise in this situation comes down to about 'plug hole.'" Manny pointed out already looking for something to shove into the hole prompting Daniela to smack herself in her face.

"Just take this and go find Cringor!" Daniela stated handing Manny a palm top computer she had on her. That said and done, Manny went to look for the wayward alien while Dani went to work on remodeling the prison that Manny had demolished.


	24. Chapter 24

** Author's Note**: Okay so last chapter, possibly for good we'll have to see. For argument's sake, this was a story that I had a clear beginning, middle and end in mind for, but with the end of the flow of reviews the cost benefit ratio has disappeared. So with that in mind please Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 24: Snake Hunt

The ghostly abilities of Daniela were extremely useful for construction, intangibility to remove rubble, flight to move heavy objects, precise application of ecto beams to weld back stone and metal, clones that multiplied her labor possession that allowed her to borrow any of the expertise that she already did not posses. Suffice to say thanks to Daniela's expertise it was like Manny never broke the dungeon: when you ignore the fact that both he and the transformed and possessed tiger were both still no where to be found. Dani distinctly remembered giving Manny a tracking device to locate the blasted Nemetrix so that they didn't lose the strongest weapon in the universe or let it wind up in the hands of someone else, like a certain snake faced psychopath running around the dark side of the content digging up super weapons to dump on a otherwise peaceful people. The point ultimately being where the hell was her brother?

* * *

Manny had taken Cringor, currently in the form of the terroranchula, and took him hunting through the wilderness of Eternia, the expert ambush predator was lashing various Eternian animals in it's electro nets. Once captured Manny would rip off a meaty chunk of DNA and bag it for Dani to sort through later/something to decorate his room in the portable lab with. Cringor in the mean time was getting use to using the new forms, each one was a new adventure and it usually took him around ten minuets figure out their unique quirks. Most of them were fairly redundant, simply massive oversize monsters only good for stomping around or breaking things. As such there was a increasing path of destruction being carved through the Eternian environment, luckily for all the jungles, forests and swamps though Manny was gravitating towards the dark continent and the plethora of Beast Man's unpleasant pets. Unfortunately though he would end up being distracted by the snake man strike team that dropped the ban hammer on any boarder crossings.

Manny for his part recognized the leonids on the ground, brutalized and beaten as they were with their hands pressed firmly to the back of their heads, as the clan chieftan and his wife. The two Snake men guarding them were eyeing the leaders with hungry eyes but were resisting the urge to indulge in their cravings why not even they were entirely sure. But they really should have been watching the prisoners, or they might've noticed an invisible figure messing around with their prisoners ears.

"Huu. Troll." Quoting the term that he had become familiar with over the course of repeat visits to the Eternian palace the chief covered his ears and his wife followed suit. The Ghostly Wail hit the two snake men like a freight train, complete with leaving ruin in it's wake as chunks of the village and the jungle behind it were blown away by the sound of Manny's voice.

"Yo." Manny finally made himself visible as he helped the lion people to their feet, read picked them up by the scruffs of their necks and put them back on their feet.

"I admit I'm torn between happy to see you again and mortified that you're here. I thought you left already?" The Lionel chieftan questioned cocking a suspicious brow at Manny, and noticed the scar that went across his bare chest. "Did King Hiss do that?"

"No. Why does everyone keep asking about my scar?" Manny asked confused.

"It's just that Hiss is here and you being you..." As chief Lionel was explaining this Hiss came back to the village with some sort of amulet in his hand and took one look at the situation before turning to look at Manny.

"Your doing I take it?" Hiss asked cocking a suspicious brow at Manny.

"UGH!" Kobra Kahn, who was following his liege around filling him in on things that had happened since his long entombment, had a scared look on his face. "Master! This one is dangerous!" Kobra stated as he backed away from Manny.

"Ah the immortal then. Thank you by the way for removing those squatters from my home." King Hiss looked at Manny in the same way a python would a gazelle he had just captured.

"Alright who are you and what are you doing here?" Manny asked sounding like he didn't care one iota for the answer.

"You mean aside from eating our people?" The chieftan stated glaring suspiciously at Manny.

"I know that but I was making him tell me that to distract him." Manny stated turning his attention to the chieftan.

"What?" King Hiss asked shocked that someone would openly discuss this very important bit of information in front of the enemy.

"I said I'm distracting you while I'm waiting for back up to get here you git!" Manny snapped at the serpent King while turning his attention back to the chieftan of the Leonids, prompting both the chief and the serpent king to drop jaws.

"The Eternian army is coming here? Master what are your orders?" Kobra Kahn asked turning to face his king.

"I was planning on testing this on the Leonids anyway, so this will be a good chance. See if you can get a read on how far away they are." At once several snake people climbed up nearby trees to get a better look at the situation. "If you wouldn't mind enlightening us as to where and when the Eternian army is getting here I would greatly appreciate it." As long as Manny was intent on spilling the beans anyway he might as well go all out.

"What you talking about? You guys didn't get here much before me right?" Manny asked looking at the felinid chief who nodded his head in confusion. "Even if we started to come here the moment that you guys invaded it would be at least three more hours until we got here." Manny stated holding up three fingers to emphasize his point.

"That is what I thought." King Hiss stated recalling the response time of the Eternian army during his scouting mission. "Then what are you doing here?"

"Talking your ear off?" Manny asked not quite understanding the question.

"I meant how did you get here so quickly?" King Hiss asked as his men continued to fail to find the reinforcements.

"I was in the neighborhood." Manny stated holding up what distinctly looked like a bag of slime.

"Well that's good to know." Finally King Hiss's amulet started glowing.

"Ah good this is finally done." King Hiss was also stalling for time, after all it had been centuries since the Amulet of Echidna was used and as such it was slow to reawaken, taking the King's DNA and using that as the base for what it would unleash. Looking up the King saw his men getting down, having confirmed that the reinforcements Manny was talking about were not coming. "Now than immortal, it is time that you..." The ground started shaking, the Snake men and the Felinids desperately clung to anything nailed down to stabilize themselves.

"Ah about time."

Suddenly the ground gave way beneath the King's feet. A massive beak rose up to either side of him and the King only narrowly dived out of the way in time for the beak to snap shut and give way to a huge tiger striped worm monster, it's head covered in familiar armor plating and it's back a armored saddle, and lodged between the two was a spiky red collar with the symbol resembling the gaping jaws of a monster.

"Grey-Skull's lion?" King Hiss was stunned senseless, much like what he was with Manny earlier as he explained what he was doing to the serpentine leader of the snake people. "How long were we asleep exactly?"

Hiss's gorgon acted fast, intercepting the beast with his petrification stare and causing him to turn to stone. Having not learned his lesson from the last time the stone promptly collapsed and spat out a familiar giant spider monster. Cringor as Terroranchula produced a web of electro netting to try and break his fall, but instead ended up covering himself in a armor of the stuff. Cringor, seeing as how he was possessed by the ancient spirit of a battle hardened warrior monster, wasted no time and used his new electro armor to send the snakes flying every attack repulsed in a arch of electricity and every foe going down like they were hit by a taser. Still it mattered little to the one with a gorgon head as he simply moved into position to freeze Cringor in a stony prison again.

"Nope. Not happening." And for that reason Manny grabbed the poor bugger's head from behind and twisted it off with a snap. "Hey snake face!" Manny drew the attention of the leader of the snake people by holding the severed head up by it's hair snakes. "'Look I'm Stony McStone face and I try to make statues out of people!'" Manny mocked bouncing the head up and down like a puppet.

"You will pay for that fool!" King Hiss's face twisted in rage before it started to change form along with the rest of his body, turning into a pair of legs with a mass of snakes coming out the top.

"Ah did I make you mad?" All the snakes let out a not even remotely snake like roar as they charged forward. "Yeah I'd say so."

Manny did not even react when unhinged jaws bit down and swallowed him in one gulp, his impressive amount of bulk seemed to disappear in a instant in the gullet of Hiss's belly. Immediately the Hydra with legs returned to the form of the relatively humanoid Hiss, unmoving.

"Master...?" Kobra Kahn approached hopefully, turned to the King's front to address him face to face. "Are you okay?" Only to bare witness to a twisted demented grin that did not suit the king of the snakes at all.

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Saying that Hiss suddenly shot into the air miles above the surface of the planet before Manny promptly de-possessed him, grabbing him by the neck, slammed him down into the earth like a meteor. The explosion of force was enough to scatter the fighting snakes and lions and force another transformation by Cringor this time into a giant stony beetle.

* * *

"Keeping a eye on the seismographs was a good idea." Dani admitted as she looked as a section of the map that was indicating multiple magnitude earthquakes in a place that had absolutely nothing to do with fault lines.

"Credit where it's due. It's not like your brother is hard to find." Man at Arms stated leaning back in his chair. "According to your scanner this Nemetrix thing is there too."

"Two birds one stone." Daniela stated as she prepared to leave.

"But if your brother's causing this much ruckus..." Man At Arms stated as he looked up at the map concerned.

"Then it most likely means that he's found something to fight yes I'm aware, luckily Adam mentioned that he wants his cat back."

* * *

The snakes were thoroughly enraged. The Captive Felinids. The amulet that Hiss had come here in the first place to retrieve, the huge stone faced cockroach that was plowing them over. All of it was irrelevant compared to the goal of getting their king to safety, and avenging his honor. Thus the snakes rampaged dog piling on Manny as they twisted their bodies around to try to crush him.

"Wow you guys are really upset about this aren't you?" To the snakes eternal frustration they discovered that Manny's body was nigh invulnerable, their attempts to pierce his flesh bouncing off of rubbery muscles and their efforts to constrict him failing miserably as he just walks through their puny efforts to restrain him leaving a pile of broken bodies in his wake.

"Now where do you think you are going?" Manny asked singling out Kobra Kahn who was attempting to dig King Hiss out of the crater.

"RRRAAAGGGHHH!" Kobra Kahn gave a frustrated snarl to Manny for the destruction that he caused here and the devastation to his people that he's responsible for. Then as was usual for Manny, a explosion went off in his face.


End file.
